


Troubled Souls

by ConsultingTimeLord



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Emotionally Repressed, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingTimeLord/pseuds/ConsultingTimeLord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year after the kaiju war, Hermann and Newton have relocated to Berlin to continue studying the kaiju in order to unlock the secrets of the Anteverse. What they don't know is that the Precursors, the creators of the kaiju, plan to do the same with Earth by utilizing the connection from the remaining kaiju to Newton's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements to my totally awesome beta thorinodinsons.tumblr.com  
> And another to goldenretraleigh.tumblr.com for helping with English to German translations

_At the other end of a broken bridge between two dimensions, those responsible for creating the kaiju, those that survived the blast from Gipsy Danger, conversed with one another. They spoke of plans, of how to proceed, how to survive and exact revenge. The world known as Earth bit back when they sunk their teeth into the planet's crust like no other had. They were denied what belonged to them but they refused to leave without it._

_They saw little hope for anything except to slowly rebuild the tunnel on their own which could take almost more cycles than they cared to waste. Their builders began construction as the Precursors gathered up the remaining kaiju on the wasteland that was their most recently conquered and scavenged planet, with the intention of slaughtering their failed creations._

_When they raised their pointed weapons to their throats, they heard the kaiju wail in unison. They cried about a human they all saw in their heads, just behind their eyeballs like his image was burned there forever. The Precursors paused, lowering their weapons, chattering to each other in an unknown language about a link. Whoever plagued the thoughts of the kaiju could act as a link between their dimension and the one they desired to reach._

_They spared the kaiju, took them and plugged into their brains to see his face. And saw him they did. A small man with dark hair and images of their kaiju plastered colorfully on his arms. His body may have been small, but the kaiju also knew of his mind and that was a large treasure. He knew of the kaiju, the Precursors, and of the tunnel itself, all of which lent sparks of excitement to a new idea._

 

One year after the end of the kaiju war, Newton and Hermann made themselves a home at an apartment in Berlin. They'd found the place not long after the Shatterdome in Hong Kong closed and they transformed it into something of a haven where they felt comfortable.

The thought crossed their minds as Newton hung up his inflatable Jaeger and Hermann his chalkboard that perhaps they shouldn't share a space as they had in a lab for ten years. Yet, they found that time apart caused a pull in their minds, like a long piece of string wrapped around their brains that was connected to the other person. The greater the distance, the harder the pull. Raleigh informed them it was a side effect of Drifting.

They could've lived apart but they saw no reason to when it was ingrained in them for so long. They worked well together despite the arguments and their home life turned out to be no different. They kept their own spaces within the two-bedroom apartment but tended to clash in those they shared like the kitchen and the living area. However, it never became anything that couldn't be solved with a few hours of silence and quiet apologies.

"You know, there's a reason this kitchen is big enough for two people," Hermann complained as Newton invaded his personal space so that they both crowded around a black granite counter atop dark wooden cabinets.

Newton, who stood shirtless, tattoos exposed, with a tired expression, held a bowl full of dry cereal in one hand and reached out for the gallon of milk on the counter with the other. Hermann looked up from spreading jam on his toast and promptly slapped the hand away.

"Come on, man," he whined. "I need the milk too."

"Du bist so ein Kind," Hermann grumbled under his breath, slipping seamlessly into a German accent.

"Yeah, same to you!"

He gave up and walked out of the white tile floored room to the adjoining one with stained wood floors. The room was small with only a rectangular dining table in the center and a single chair on each side. It was well lit with three windows set into the white walls to which Hermann had already opened the curtains just as he had previously showered and dressed.

Newton dragged out the chair closest to him and plopped into the cushioned seat, pulling it back toward the table where he set down his bowl of dry cereal and useless spoon. He glared at the colorful loops of grain and sugar and popped one into his mouth, munching on it bitterly. A disgruntled expression settled on his face until Hermann joined him, taking a couple of trips to set down his breakfast, before he silently placed the milk in front of him. Newton brightened instantly.

"Thanks, dude!" Newton said, pouring the liquid over the cereal before greedily digging in.

"Don't call me dude," Hermann replied, not bothering to look over at Newton as he sipped his steaming cup of tea.

They ate breakfast in relative silence, Newton smiling like an appeased child as he practically inhaled the sugary soup.

"So, what are we doing today?" Newton asked with a full mouth.

Hermann sighed as he cut into his poached eggs. "We're just going into the lab to run some tests on a new shipment of salvaged kaiju parts."

"A new shipment? From where?" Newton said, leaning back in his chair as his brows knitted together.

"Where do you think?" Hermann said, raising an eyebrow.

Newton thought on it and a memory arose from his time in Hong Kong, specifically of the vast collection of one Hannibal Chau. "The black market? Really?"

"Where else are we supposed to get any testing material when scavengers always pick up the scraps first?" Hermann said.

Newton shrugged. He understood the ends even if the means were illegal. All he cared about was being able to test on kaiju again, though the purpose was completely different. Before, they'd hoped to learn from them in order to stop them. Their new goal was to study them to learn about other dimensions, specifically the one they emerged from.

Newton quickly finished his breakfast and carelessly dropped the bowl into the sink before he showered and dressed in his white shirt and skinny black tie. He never bothered to update his work clothes because they felt comfortable and they looked pretty good on him, in his opinion. He threw on his shoes and leather jacket as Hermann rested his cane beside the door before pulling on his fluffy parka.

"I still can't believe you spent our money on that preposterous machine," Hermann grumbled as they stepped out of their front door, Newton grabbing a set of keys on the way out.

"It's not preposterous, it's cool," Newton countered. "And it'll pay itself off with the gas money we save."

They walked out onto their short, paved driveway where a shiny, black Harley Davidson sat with two helmets, one on the seat and the other on the right handlebar.

"I think I would've rather paid the extra money for something with four wheels," Hermann said, frowning at the motorcycle.

"What, like an ATV?"

Hermann pinched the bridge of his nose before hobbling forward, leaving Newton to lock up the apartment. Once the door was securely locked, he hopped over to the bike and shoved the black, visored helmet onto his head. He reached his hand out to Hermann who forked over his cane and then he snapped it into place on the mount he had installed along the side of it.

Newton threw his leg over the bike and made himself comfortable on the seat before lifting the kickstand, keeping it balanced with his feet. Hermann placed a hand instinctively on Newton's shoulder as he moved his leg over, taking a little bit longer to sit down, fitting himself against Newton's body.

"This is so undignified," Hermann said, wrapping his arms around Newton's waist.

Newton laughed. "You know you like it."

Hermann began to protest but Newton turned the key in the ignition to drown him out. He revved the engine a few times before pulling out onto the road. Hermann's grip around Newton tightened as they sped down the streets, heading toward the local Shatterdome. The Berlin Shatterdome, like a few others, remained open solely for research purposes, all of the Jaeger's having been destroyed or shut down a year earlier.

The drive wasn't long and soon they pulled into the parking lot bustling with people carrying shipping containers. Newton had to dodge a few people before settling in his reserved parking space. He waited until Hermann climbed off the bike before putting up the kickstand and shoving the keys in his pocket. They left their helmets on the motorcycle and looked around at everyone moving back and forth, transporting crates on dollies and by hand.

"How much did they get off the black market?" Newton wondered, awe creeping into his tone.

"This can't all be Kaiju parts," Hermann said, mostly to himself.

Newton looked at Hermann and shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

He unclipped Hermann's cane from the bike and handed it to him before they walked off toward the elevator entrance. They rode down with a few of the box carriers and Newton attempted to check the package labels to see what they were. His technique was so far from discreet that Hermann smacked him in the leg with the cane when he moved to look over one of worker's shoulders.

"Ow!" he hissed, moving back to stand next to Hermann.

"Stop that. It's not like we won't know soon enough," Hermann chastised at a raised whisper.

Newton glared at him, but it didn't last long. His gaze softened and he forgave just as the elevator doors opened to the ground floor of the Shatterdome. Everyone swiftly exited and walked off in separate directions, Newton and Hermann keeping straight while the carriers veered to the right toward the open floor where the discontinued Jaeger's stood on display.

By instinct, Newton slowed his pace so that Hermann could keep up. It was an action he'd grown accustomed to after years of working with him and it occurred even more naturally after their time in the Drift. Newton even started to notice times where Hermann walked like he didn't need a cane, as if his pace mimicked Newton's.

They soon reached the rusted metal door of their lab that was carelessly thrown open, crates stacked just inside. He heard Hermann huff to his right, clearly frustrated at the intrusion. He walked around Newton and into the large space, much larger than their old lab. They received an upgrade for being a part of the team that saved the world, one that they both were grateful for as it caused them to butt heads a little less.

Newton followed closely behind, seeing all of the boxes placed everywhere on both sides of the room. Everything else still seemed to be in place, though, as Newton checked his action figures and the testing equipment he left out from the day before. Hermann muttered angrily to himself as he shifted a table slightly to the right.

"Everything looks fine, Hermann. No one touched anything," Newton said, leaning his lower back and hands against a metal table.

"Yes, well, they still could've waited for our authorization," Hermann replied, poking at one of the wooden boxes with his cane.

"Something tells me this goes far over our heads."

Newton grabbed a blade from a nearby table and walked over to Hermann, quickly prying open the top of the crate to find a sea of packing material. Hermann set his cane aside and dug through it all until he pulled out a glass cube filled with liquid that held a large eye floating in its center. Newton grabbed it from him and set it down on one of his tables before opening the one beneath it which held a sizable skin sample. The huge crate on the bottom contained a well-preserved piece of a secondary brain.

"It's a good thing we have a lot more room. We would've been fucked in the old lab," Newton said, crossing his arms.

"Language, Newton! We've discussed this."

"Tch, what are you, my mom? We're both adults."

"Some more than others," Hermann said, shooting him a pointed look. Newton stuck his tongue out at him when he turned his back.

They cleared the two smaller crates out of the lab, leaving the brain until the lab assistants arrived to help them lift it. They instead focused on what they'd already extracted, Newton more so than Hermann. Hermann, with his love and faith in numbers, spent months using what knowledge he had gleaned from the Breach, the throat, and the genetic makeup of the kaiju to calculate what the other dimension might look like, what elements it was comprised of.

Newton always preferred the hands on approach to science, getting elbow deep in kaiju guts, studying samples, doing spur of the moment experiments on mere hunches. More often than not, his results ended up wrong or inconclusive, but the moments where he proved himself correct in spite of the disbelief around him kept him moving forward.

They spent the day doing exactly that, both concentrating on what they did best while a few assistants in lab coats unpacked all of the crates, placing everything according to Hermann's shouted instructions. Newton couldn't help but laugh quietly to himself at the fear he saw in their eyes, like Hermann was the strict disciplinarian parent. They couldn't see the soft heart beneath the thick, steel shell like he could.

As the thought crossed his mind, he barely noticed that he was staring at Hermann as he navigated his chalkboards with the skill of a choreographed dance over the eye piece of his microscope. A cough at his ear startled him and his whipped his head to the side to see a young woman, no more than twenty-five, standing there, looking apologetic. She held up a container that was full of ammonia for a skin parasite.

"Sorry to bother you, Dr. Geiszler," she began nervously, her British accent thickening.

"Please, call me Newt," he said, turning toward her in his rolling desk chair.

She appeared taken aback, though it wasn't the first time he'd made the request. All of the assistants seemed too intimidated to take him at his word.

"Um, you said you wanted to run some tests on a parasite next?" she said, completely disregarding what he said. "Dr. Gottlieb told me to leave this with you."

"Yes, thank you, Anna," he said with a reassuring smile. "Just set it on that table over there. Wherever there's room. You can just push stuff aside if you need to make room."

She nodded and scurried away, setting the case on the floor for a moment to move some beakers out of the way.

"It's like you put the fear of God into these poor kids, Hermann," Newton said, returning to the small skin sample on his slide.

"Don't call me that outside of the apartment," he snapped. "And these kids could stand to learn some respect."

Newton shook his head, an amused smile on his face. "They're plenty respectful. You're just a power hungry madman."

Hermann turned and glared at him, causing him to brighten his smile. His frown deepened into a scowl as he returned to his calculations, distinctly muttering to himself in German out of anger.

"Ich hab das gehört!" Newton shouted.

They concentrated back on their work, allowing themselves to be consumed by it as the hours flew by. The moment that the silence settled unnervingly in Newton's ears is when he finally noticed how much time passed. He looked up from the dissected parasite to Hermann, who sat in a chair, staring hard at his calculations like an art critic. He packed up the parasite in its ammonia filled case so it wouldn't decompose overnight before approaching him.

"Hey, Hermann, I think it's probably time to go."

"Hm?" he replied absently.

"I think we're the last two people still here," he said, crouching down next to him. "This stuff can wait 'til you get some sleep."

"You go, I need to stay," Hermann said without looking at him.

"Do not make me carry you because I will." Hermann finally looked at him, horror creeping over his face. "Yeah, I'm talking bridal style, Herm."

He sighed. "Fine. Give me my cane."

 

After the drive home, they both wearily stepped into their apartment, locking the door behind them. Newton yawned, tossing the keys in his hand onto one of the kitchen counters before walking down the wide hallway. He passed the open doorway to the living area, the bathroom, until he reached the last door on the left. An old, crinkled Pan Pacific propaganda poster featuring a kaiju was taped to it, claiming it as his and, once on the other side, he removed his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the pale blue carpet.

He stood in a white cotton undershirt and boxers, stretching and yawning once more, before he set his glasses down on his cluttered end table, a large, gutted guitar amplifier from his days in the Black Velvet Rabbits. He crawled into bed, under the covers, and looked up at the inflatable Jaeger and kaiju facing off as they hung from his ceiling. A few minutes later, as his eyes closed, he passed out from exhaustion, allowing darkness to overcome him.

His consciousness remained peacefully suspended in the black nothingness for a while, a calm dreamless sleep, until a jolt hit his brain. The blackness wavered, like a television shifting in and out of static, until a series of images overloaded his mind like a sudden volcanic eruption. Red, a sea of red, like a deep sunset or how Newton used to imagined what the apocalypse might look like. An explosion. Screaming. Pain and anger. It wracked his body as if he were experiencing it all first hand. He saw himself through the eyes of someone else and he saw kaiju. They cried out and the noise felt like drills in his eardrums.

A sharp pain shot through his throat as his body started to shake. The rush of images paused and shattered and his eyes fluttered open to a dark room. A loud sound reached his ears and a few seconds passed before he realized he was screaming. He stopped, feeling the raw burn in his throat, and looked up into the wide, worried eyes of Hermann.

Hermann finally stopped shaking him and let him go before sitting back on the bed and rubbing his face with his hands. When he pulled his hands away, he looked disapproving again, as if everything that just happened was something Newton did on purpose. Newton stole a deep, greedy breath to fill his deprived lungs and cool his throat. His shirt was plastered to his body with sweat that left a sheen on his arms and his head pounded like he drank an entire liquor store.

"Hermann, what happened?" Newton said, his voice cracking and raspy. He pushed his weakened body up into a sitting position and his head exploded from the movement.

"What happened!?" he said incredulously. "You were crying out and seizing in your sleep. How many times am I going to have to find you like this?"

Newton didn't know what to think but it explained how he felt. He absent-mindedly licked his lips and tasted something wet and coppery. He reached up and touched his face beneath his nose before pulling it away to look down at his blood soaked fingers.

"Ugh," he groaned. "Everything hurts, dude."

Hermann stood and walked out of the room for a moment, returning with a dampened cloth. He sat down on the bed and placed his free hand under Newton's chin to make him look up. Newton grimaced at the gesture but he also leaned into the touch as Hermann carefully wiped the blood away.

"Do you have any idea what could've caused this type of reaction?" Hermann asked, pulling his hands away after the last of the blood was gone.

A part of Newton didn't want the touch to stop. "I dunno. I was having some funky dreams," he said, holding his pounding head to keep it from falling apart.

"Dreams? You think dreams caused this?"

Pieces of his nightmare swam back into his head, the images blurred. He closed his eyes tightly as if surrounding them in darkness might clear them up. They felt both new and familiar and he concentrated on it until it hit him why.

"The Drift," he said, opening his eyes to look at Hermann.

"What?"

"My dream, it felt like being in the Drift," he clarified.

Hermann stared at him for a long moment before standing and exiting the room once more. He returned a few minutes later after dropping off the bloody cloth with a small, rectangular item in his left hand. He held it out to Newton who accepted it. It was a silver voice recorder.

"Is this mine? I've been looking everywhere for this!"

"Now is not the time!" Hermann interrupted. "Press record and tell me everything you remember."

He glared at Hermann for a few seconds before actually doing what he said. He waited to gather what thoughts about it he could remember and hit the record button. "Like I said before hitting record, the dream I had reminded me of my previous experiences in the Drift. It was like a series of images and feelings overwhelming my brain."

"Anything specific?" Hermann asked, sitting in a small armchair against a wall off to Newton's right.

"I remember a lot of screaming."

"Yes, that was you," Hermann said.

"Not my screaming, Hermann," Newton snapped. "It was… inhuman. And I felt pain and I remember an explosion and the color red. And kaiju. The kaiju were screaming too."

"Newton," Hermann began softly, like a parent breaking news to a child. Newton already felt indignant before he even began to speak. "Are you sure this isn't a case of post-traumatic stress?"

"Yes! I'm very sure," Newton said with a pointed look. He threw the covers off and moved so that he sat comfortably on the edge of the bed. "PTSD doesn't manifest like this. My whole body hurts. I woke up with a nose bleed. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if my brain started leaking out of my ears."

"It was merely a suggestion," Hermann said, crossing his arms.

A biting remark rolled around on his tongue but he held it back. He knew Hermann was simply trying to eliminate more probable causes and PTSD did make sense with what they both had experienced. Newton sighed, rubbing his forehead as pain pulsated against his skull. He tried to remember more about the dream but the images began to fade.

"I don't think I can remember anything else," he said, stopping the recording. "Do we have any aspirin or a vicodin?"

Hermann nodded with understanding as he stood up with help from the cane in his right hand. "Lay back and rest. You'll need it if you feel as bad as you say."

He did as told, pushing the damp sheet away from him as he lay uncovered on his bed. He looked over to his amp end table at the red numbers on his digital clock. A little after three in the morning. Exhaustion swept over him as if he hadn't slept at all and he almost fell back asleep before Hermann returned. When he did, he had Newton sit up again before handing him the pills and glass of water.

"Thank you," Newton said in a grateful breath.

He popped both pills in his mouth and drained the glass, the water soothing the soreness he felt. Hermann grabbed the glass and the voice recorder from him before settling into the armchair he sat in earlier. "I'll be staying here until morning. For research purposes," he added. "I want to be present when it begins if it occurs again. The more information, the better chance we have of discovering the source of the problem."

"Dude, I dunno if I can sleep with you watching me. That's a little creepy," Newton said, lying back down.

Hermann shot him one of his famous annoyed college professor looks and Newton held up his hands in surrender before turning away from him to sleep. He sprawled out on the bed, boxers riding up so that the tattoos on his thighs showed. Rather than feel the chill of having eyes on him while he tried to sleep, he felt oddly comforted knowing Hermann was there if he needed him. He hoped that the medication he ingested would soon curb the pain before he allowed his fatigue to overpower him and lull him into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick German translations:
> 
> Towards the beginning when Hermann grumbles at Newton, he's saying: You're such a child.  
> The second instance when Newton shouts at Hermann, he's saying: I heard that!


	2. Chapter 2

When Newton opened his eyes again, a faint light leaked in from behind the shade of his one window. He stretched out and rolled over to look at his clock and spotted Hermann, leaning to the side and fast asleep. A smile spread over his face at the sight, how peaceful and vulnerable he appeared. Hermann never allowed his vulnerability to show so it was a unique sight.

The clock told him the time of ten after eight, less than an hour before they were normally at work in the lab. Newton stood and slipped on his glasses before pulling the black, tattered comforter from his bed and laying it over Hermann's sleeping form. He knew Hermann would be angry when he woke, but he felt he deserved to sleep in at least once.

He walked into the bathroom and checked his reflection in the round mirror above the sink. His skin looked paler than usual and his eyes seemed red and bloodshot. He still felt a little sore but most of the pain ebbed away during his dreamless few hours of sleep. After using the bathroom, he scavenged their fridge and pulled out a package of bacon, a carton of eggs, and a couple of potatoes.

He used the extent of his cooking skills to make all of it on their stovetop, juggling cooking everything at once. When he heard the tap of a cane echoing down the hall, Newton grabbed a couple of plates from the cupboards above the counters and set them down beside the stove before plating the cooked food. He clicked off the burners and turned around just in time for Hermann to storm in.

"Do you know how late it is?" he scolded as he walked around the corner into the open space.

"Chill out, Hermann," Newton said with a bright smile on his face. "We'll get to work. I'll call in late, say I wasn't feeling well. It's not a lie."

"That's no excuse," he said, his face set in a disapproving glare. Newton was convinced that's just how his face looked as its default expression.

"I never said it was an excuse. You just looked like you could use some extra sleep," Newton said. He grabbed a plate off the counter and held it out to Hermann. "I made breakfast as a, uh, thank you. For looking after me last night."

Hermann frowned at the plate, eyes softening enough for Newton to notice. "Fine, we can go in a little late. Just this once. But if we get reprimanded, it falls on you."

Newton nodded. "Yes, sir. Totally my fault."

Hermann shook his head a little as he carried the plate to the dining table and Newton followed soon after with his usual morning tea. He never had to ask how to make it because he simply knew, information that leaked through during their Drift experience. Afterward, he made himself a coffee and sat down as well, the two of them eating in relative peace.

"So, did I have any other episodes last night?" Newton said, munching on a crispy piece of bacon.

Hermann shook his head. "No, nothing."

Hermann refused to look at him concentrating solely on the food before him.

"You still think it's PTSD," Newton said, knowing it was true.

"It just seems more reasonable," Hermann said, setting down his fork. "Certainly, it could be combined with and amplified by side effects of your Drifts with a kaiju, but at its core…"

"Your reasoning isn't wrong but you didn't feel it," Newton said, dwelling on what scarce details he could remember. "It felt like something in my head, leaving everything I saw and felt behind."

"Well, leave that recorder by your bed and keep notes if it happens again," Hermann said.

"You know what? I will," Newton said, staring at Hermann. "Wanna know why? Because it's mine anyway!"

"Oh, don't start this, Newton," Hermann said dryly, drinking from his mug of tea.

"I'm just saying," Newton grumbled.

Hermann shook his head and finished off his tea before piling the mug and fork onto his plate so he could carry it all in one trip. Newton called into work while Hermann showered then he walked to his room to clean up a little as he waited for his turn. A few minutes later when the water turned off, Newton walked out for his turn and the door opened to a cloud of steam and a sweaty, topless Hermann with a dark green towel around his waist.

Newton's eyes widened and he choked on his own saliva. He coughed until he could breathe again as Hermann glared at him. He held the towel with one hand and his cane with his other as he stared Newton down. Newton did the same, except his eyes raked over the entirety of Hermann's body, every inch of skin. His gaze paused on the scar tissue stretching along his left leg. A flashback hit him then, just a quick flash and blinding pain. At first he didn't realize that it wasn't his, but after a moment he knew it belonged to Hermann. That didn't stop him from flinching because of the pain he remembered but never experienced. Hermann practically growled until Newton moved his eyes back to his face.

"I left my clothes in my room accidentally. Excuse me," he said, barreling past Newton and into his room.

Newton stood frozen for a few moments while he processed what happened before forcing himself to walk into the bathroom and take a shower. They both dressed and left for work, arriving around ten to open up the lab. Their assistants were waiting for them when they walked up and Newton used his keys, throwing open the door and allowing everyone in ahead of him.

A yawn forced its way out of him as he walked into the lab. He collapsed into his desk chair and rubbed his eyes of the exhaustion he felt within them. A groan settled in his throat as he opened his eyes to see Anna and Erika waiting patiently for him to notice their presence.

"Is there anything you need us to do, Dr. Geiszler?" Anna said.

Newton shook his head. "I got nothing. I'm sure Dr. Gottlieb doesn't wanna be disturbed, though that makes it tempting to disturb him. You guys and Bryson can work on your individual research for the day. Anything on my side of the lab is fair game. You should probably ask the good doctor back there if you need anything on his."

Relief spread over their faces at the news and they nodded before setting up work stations at the tables beside the door. Newton turned and rested his forehead on the eyepiece of his microscope, internally sighing at how terrible he felt. He squeezed his eyes shut and collected himself before pushing away and rolling around to the side of the table where the partially dissected skin parasite lay in its case of ammonia.

When he opened up the case and looked down at the parasite, a flash of deep, bloody red consumed his vision. He gasped, quick and sharp, and jumped back hard enough that his chair rolled into the table behind him. He blinked away the horrible sight until he saw the lab again and looked around to find that no one had noticed his little episode. His chest heaved with panicked breaths but he quickly calmed down, regaining a normal rhythm.

He stole a deep, stabilizing breath and continued with his work by removing the parasite and picking up where he left off the night before. Time passed by, fast at first before dramatically slowing down when his lack of sleep caught up with him again. He stood up and stretched, feeling a lunch hunger flare up in his stomach. He walked down the line of tape that divided the lab in half to the refrigerator that sat directly on top of it against the wall between two tables.

He opened it and looked at the wide array of foods, most of them not belonging to him. The idea of stealing from any of the assistants rarely crossed his mind, but Newton glanced over to see if Hermann was paying attention before grabbing half of his roast beef and cheese sandwich and a plastic baggie of trail mix. Hermann remained sitting in a chair a few feet from the blackboards since they arrived, staring and occasionally jotting down notes in a pocket notepad. Newton knew he wouldn't notice the theft any time soon.

The coffee machine on the opposite end of the line called to him and he obliged, placing the sandwich between his teeth for safe keeping as he grabbed one of the probably clean mugs sitting beside it and filled it with what was left from the morning's pot. He bit the chunk out of the sandwich when he pulled it from his mouth and sat down at his work station to finish off the rest of it. Soon the sandwich was eaten, the coffee drained, the trail mix half gone, but he gained no energy as if something syphoned it out of him as he refilled it.

In a moment of weakness, he folded his arms on a table and rested his head, just for a second, and he accidentally slipped away. Instantly, his mind filled with horrific images of watching people die in droves. Their cries exploded in his ears and he felt nothing. Their blood, no more than red polka dots in the sea they fell into as the bridge was ripped away like paper. He exterminated them.

Then he was back in the deep red world, sucked through a vacuum into hell, and he felt bone-chilling fear. It wracked his body and brain, near paralyzing. The Precursors, he saw them, his creators, his masters. Then he felt himself die, energy ripping through him, tearing him to pieces that disintegrated soon after. Once he was gone, the darkness returned and a voice that echoed like a powerful deity spoke in a language he didn't know but understood all the same.

**_Hello, Newton._ **

He gasped, desperate for air, and tasted warm blood on his tongue. His vision swam, the darkness dissipating until the ceiling of the lab pieced itself into view and he could feel the hard floor at his back. Someone held his head as Hermann knelt down on one knee into his field of vision with the help of his cane. He coughed and blood splattered onto his shirt, another one he'd have to replace along with all the nosebleed incidents.

"Newton, can you hear me?" Hermann said, concern causing his tone to waver from its usual accusing state to one of panic.

"Yeah," he replied weakly, trying to sit up.

Hermann reached out with his free hand and gripped Newton's left forearm before pulling him up. Only the hands on his back kept him stable. He coughed again and spit the blood out onto the floor, wiping his face mostly clean with the sleeve of his already ruined shirt. His head pounded, just like the last time, threatening to break apart.

"What happened?" Hermann demanded, still holding onto his arm with a vice grip as if he might lose him if he let go.

"I, uh, fell asleep," he said with a sad, pained laugh.

"Help me get him into a chair," Hermann said to the people behind him.

Three pairs of hands grabbed him in different places and lifted until he stood shakily on his feet. With the team effort, Hermann and the lab assistants guided him into his rolling desk chair and Hermann grabbed another from a nearby table to sit across from him. Newton felt like he might vomit or pass out, he couldn't tell which.

"Go take a break, I'll get you when we're done," Hermann said to the lab assistants. When they all left, he turned to Newton with urgency in his tone. "What did you see?"

"There was a lot," Newton said, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to remember. "It was more focused this time. Um, I remember I was hurting a lot of people, killing them, and then I was in this place and everything was red. I felt terrified. Still do…"

Hermann reached over and grabbed his face, forcing him to look him in the eye. Newton stared at him, a fixed point, and inhaled a calming breath. "You're not there anymore, Newton," he said soothingly. "It was only a dream and there's nothing to be afraid of anymore."

Newton nodded and Hermann let go. "After that I, uh, I felt myself die," he said, keeping eye contact with Hermann to ground himself. "And then something spoke to me. It knew my name, Hermann."

"Whatever it was doesn't exist," Hermann said with conviction.

"It felt so real," Newton said, his voice and hands shaking in unison.

"Use your rational scientific mind, Newton."

"It's a bit harder to be rational when Satan just tapped into my head to say hello," Newton snapped.

"It was only a dream!" Hermann reiterated.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay," Newton said, dropping his head into his hands. "It was only a dream." He whispered it to himself over and over like a mantra.

Blood dripped from his nose into his palms, pooling there as Newton tried to keep his mind distant from the dream. He stopped whispering and moved his hands away, looking down at the dark liquid staining his hands. Hermann stood and grabbed a few paper towels from his side of the lab and cleaned up the blood from his palms and face.

"This is more serious than I originally suspected. We should schedule you for a brain scan," Hermann said as he wiped the last of the blood from his face.

"What? No," Newton said like an indignant child. "I don't need to see a doctor. I'm perfectly fine."

"Yes," Hermann said, shooting Newton a look that made him feel like he already lost, "bleeding profusely every time you fall asleep constitutes as perfectly fine."

"Maybe it'll stop on its own?"

"Or perhaps you'll die from blood loss or a brain hemorrhage," Hermann snapped. "Who is that neurologist friend of yours? The one you were in that band with."

Newton swallowed hard. "I don't know who you're talking about."

"Dietrich! Dr. Christoph Dietrich."

"That's not him!"

"Newton, give me your phone," Hermann said, holding out his hand.

"I don't—"

"NEWTON," Hermann growled, his glare piercing straight into Newton.

"Damn it," Newton hissed as he reached into the pocket of his pants and reluctantly held it out to Hermann.

Hermann snatched it from him and searched through his contacts, finding the right number quickly. He glared at Newton before standing and wandering away so that he wouldn't be interrupted. A wave of sick anxiety crashed over him as Hermann started to talk in hushed German, pacing a little as he spoke. He didn't want to see a doctor or know what was happening to him. Once it was given a name, it made it horribly real, real enough that it could actually kill him.

He nervously cracked his knuckles and shifted uncomfortably in his chair until Hermann hung up the phone. Newton balled his hands into fists to make the fidgeting stop as he approached and held out his phone to him. He snatched it back and stuffed it into his pocket before looking up at Hermann with an expectant expression.

"He's willing to do you a favor. You have an appointment for two in the afternoon tomorrow, no consultation needed," he said, looking fairly pleased with himself.

"Great," Newton replied with mock enthusiasm. "That's just… great."

"Do you want this to continue happening?"

"No," Newton begrudgingly admitted.

"Good," Hermann said, grabbing his parka from a hook near his chalkboards and pulling it on. "Grab your coat. We're going home."

"It's not that bad, Hermann," he pleaded.

Hermann shot him another argument killing look as he walked past him toward the door. "I'm sending the assistants home as well. Meet me outside."

Newton groaned but stood up and grabbed his leather jacket off the wall beside the door anyway. He dragged his weakened body out into the parking lot, pushed on his helmet, and sat on the bike until Hermann finally joined him. They drove off, Newton using every ounce of energy and concentration he had left to keep them balanced and alive. He felt grateful when they eventually pulled into their driveway and he could put up the kickstand and relax.

He rested against the handlebars as Hermann dismounted and grabbed his cane. After a second or two he managed to pry his own body off as well, following Hermann inside. He collapsed back against the door after closing it, shutting his eyes and immediately regretting it when he felt the fatigue. He rubbed his eyes back open under his glasses and forced himself to be alert.

"How much caffeine do we have in here? Coffee? Energy drinks? Adrenaline shots?" Newton said manically.

"We only have coffee," Hermann said, already preparing to make a pot. "Do you really think you can stay awake?"

"I've stayed awake for days on end. And I have to. I have to, Hermann," he said, desperation causing his voice to waver.

"All right," Hermann replied as he added the ground beans into the machine. "Then I'll join you. We'll keep each other awake."

"Are you sure, man?" Newton said, though he already knew that he was. He still felt like he had to ask. He always asked, just in case he ever wanted to back out.

"I'm positive. I saw your face both times, Newton. I know it wasn't a pleasant experience, what you saw. If I can help you avoid it, I will."

Newton, spur of the moment, pulled Hermann into a tight hug. It lasted all of two seconds before Hermann pried him off.

"Yes, yes. All right," he said flattening down his parka before simply removing it. "You're welcome."

"So," Newton said, a glint of something nearly malicious alight in his eye. "Monster movie marathon!?"

"Oh, must we?" Hermann droned as the machine started to spit out coffee into the pot. He hung up his parka on the hooks by the door and Newton did the same with his leather jacket and ring of keys.

"Come on. It'll be fun," Newton said excitedly, reinvigorated by the idea. "I think we have popcorn somewhere…"

Hermann looked like a groan sat in his throat, waiting to be free, but he held it back. Instead, he grabbed a couple of mugs from the cupboards, his own a plain black and Newton's plastered with a kaiju comic print. As soon as the coffee machine stopped sputtering, he filled them both and handed one to Newton. Newton stared at him hopefully and Hermann tried to resist him but Newton could feel his resolve weakening.

"Fine, I'll endure this marathon," he conceded.

Newton punched the air with his free hand before downing a mouthful of coffee. He set the mug down on a counter before scouring the kitchen for popcorn. He found a box stuffed behind a cereal box in the pantry and immediately threw one of the packages inside into the microwave that sat beside the fridge. Hermann watched him fly around the room in a whirlwind, quietly sipping his coffee and appearing decidedly disinterested. Newton popped two bags and poured both into a large, blue plastic bowl that he carried toward the living area, Hermann close behind.

When they reached the doorway, Newton maneuvered the bowl into Hermann's hand before rushing off to his room to grab his Blu-ray collection of monster movies. He shed his work clothes while in his room and pulled on a pair of torn black lounge pants and an Iron Man shirt that fit two sizes too large just so that he would feel more comfortable for Hermann's trek into the wonders of his film collection.

The stacks of thin cases sat lovingly arranged on a small, self-made metal bookcase next to his end table. He checked through the titles before grabbing a massive chunk of them and managing to balance them with the help of both arms and his chin. When he walked into the living area, Hermann's eyes widened fractionally at the sight of the stack that reached from Newton's waist to just underneath his chin. Newton grinned at him before setting the stack down in front of the glass entertainment center that their flat screen TV sat on.

The room itself was spacious, dark grey carpet, off-white walls, with black leather couches and chairs due to Newton's penchant for spilling food and drink on the furniture and floors. The wall across from the doorway was constructed to be a giant bookcase while old paintings and vinyl records hung decoratively on the others.

"These are arranged from classics to more recent stuff. Your pick where we start," Newton said, turning to look at Hermann.

"I honestly have no preference," Hermann said from his place on the couch.

Newton shrugged and knelt down, examining the different movies before settling on the first Jaws to start Hermann out with something simple. He pried open the case and slotted it into the sleek Blu-ray player and grabbed the needed remotes from the shelf beside it before joining Hermann on the couch. Hermann placed the popcorn between them as Newton hit play and they settled in for a long night of movie watching.

Throughout most of the first movie, Hermann held fast with a disinterested expression on his face, refusing to enjoy himself to any extent. He didn't touch the popcorn and sat with his arms crossed over his chest. Newton, with the energy and excitability of a puppy, kept looking over to see if Hermann was reacting at all of the right parts, only to be sorely disappointed. However, he refused to give up on the sturgeon-faced man.

The next movie, Predator, proved to be a large step up from man-eating sharks and Newton noticed, much to his delight, that Hermann became enthralled. His tightly crossed arms slackened and he grabbed a few pieces of popcorn as the movie played. By the time they reached District 9 and drank two pots of coffee, Hermann was actively engaged, discussing theory and probability with Newton and Newton reciprocated with nothing less than glee.

Ever since the war began and he started working with Hermann, Newton had no one to talk to about his interests since it was apparent Hermann wasn't interested. As they talked over the movie, Newton secretly wished he'd requested to do it earlier. He also thought that his interest was in part thanks to their time in the Drift.

Time flew by with movie after movie until it was six in the morning and they'd made all the coffee they had, forcing Newton to resort to caffeinated tea. He sat watching Godzilla destroy buildings as Hermann struggled to stay awake. The occasional incoherent mumble left his mouth before he finally lost his grip on consciousness, falling a short distance onto Newton's shoulder. Newton stared for a moment, perplexed, before mentally shrugging and turning back to the movie. He'd helped him all night so he deserved a few hours of rest.

Once the movie ended, he carefully wedged a hand between Hermann's head and his shoulder, lifting him up a few inches so he could stand up. Then using both hands, he gently lowered him back down on the couch in what appeared to be a mostly comfortable position. He didn't stir so Newton accepted that as a good sign.

He resisted the sudden, strong urge to lean down and kiss him on the forehead. What if he woke up? Then he would know. Except that he already knew, Newton realized. They both did and a long year passed without either of them mentioning it. The beginning wisps of a sigh passed his lips as he turned off the TV and the Blu-ray player before leaving him to rest and walked out into the kitchen where beams of early morning light peeked in.

He dumped the rest of the vanilla chai in his cup out into the sink and removed his glasses to rub his eyes. The caffeine in his system did nothing; he knew that for certain as he felt the weight of exhaustion pressing on him, making him bend like tree boughs in the wind. All that kept him awake throughout the night was the scratching he felt in his brain, claws digging into the folds and tearing them apart to get in. The soft, barely audible whispers that sent chills through him like electricity and filled him with dread. Everything he didn't want to see lay just beyond the thin veil between awake and asleep and the will to avoid it kept him going. Hermann being there as a safety net helped too.

He rummaged through the fridge and grabbed a bowl of leftover potato salad with a fork and sat down at the dining room table to eat. As he stabbed a chunk of potato and savored the taste, he built up a wall in his head between his conscious thoughts and the incessant whispers so he could make it through the day with his sanity intact. He only hoped that his brain scan would get results and that it would be easily fixed. He didn't want to die. He still had some things left unresolved.


	3. Chapter 3

When Hermann woke up, Newton was sitting in his room with a book open in his lap. Newton heard him as he sat up with a groan and heard the stifled noise of irritation when he realized he woke up in the room alone. He braced himself as he heard the sound of his cane moving closer until it paused outside of his doorway. He flipped the page, pretending to continue reading until he spoke up.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he said, anger creeping into his tone.

"You needed the sleep," he replied, finally looking up into Hermann's annoyance-lined face. "I kept myself awake just fine."

Hermann pressed his lips into a tight line but it appeared to soften when Newton flashed him an apologetic smile. He shook his head and left the open doorway, most likely to scrounge up what remained of the tea. Newton sat up straighter, trying to keep himself uncomfortable in order to stay awake as he read.

He stayed in his room for the entire morning as Hermann shuffled around the apartment, showering, eating breakfast, and cleaning. He managed to remain ignored until about noon when Hermann stood in his doorway once more, glaring disapprovingly. Newton continued to ignore him, the anxiety of what awaited him flaring up in his gut, causing his stomach to lurch and tighten. It didn't last long as Hermann marched in and grabbed the book from his hands.

"Dude!" he said, looking up.

"We're leaving for the hospital soon," Hermann chastised. "Please get ready. Be somewhat presentable."

"Presentable? Just to go see whether or not I'm gonna live?"

"Newton!" Hermann said sharply, his eyes widening in shock and horror, as if it was something he hadn't considered.

"Sorry," he mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

Hermann shook his head and tossed the book onto Newton's bed. "Just get dressed. The cab I called will be here in an hour.

"A taxi? Dude, what about the bike?"

Hermann stared at him incredulously. "You've been awake for over twenty-four hours. We are not taking that infernal thing."

He ended the conversation by turning away and walking out of the room. Newton reluctantly stood up from the bed and showered, dressing in jeans and an old, olive green PPDC shirt he was given when he joined the K-Science division. He didn't feel much like a rock star in that moment, more like a man walking to his own death.

He walked out into the kitchen where Hermann was leaning against a counter, one hand on the glossy surface, tightly gripping a cleaning rag, and the other pressed over his eyes. He righted himself as soon as he heard Newton's footsteps, continuing to clean the already spotless area. Hermann scanned him with one of his judging once overs but it was too late. Newton already knew that he felt scared too.

When the taxi pulled up outside of their apartment, the feeling of dread in his gut flared up like an inferno. The thought crossed his mind that he could run, but it didn't last long, not with Hermann to stop him and nowhere to go. He glanced over at Hermann before stepping forward to go outside but a hand on his wrist stopped him.

"I just want you to know," Hermann said as Newton turned back toward him, "no matter what it is, we'll get through it."

"And if it is terminal?" Newton asked seriously, the last word sticking in his throat on its way out.

Hermann hesitated, his expression of stoicism faltering. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But I'll be here for you either way."

Hermann let go of his wrist but Newton grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into a hug. "Thanks, man," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded to Newton as they pulled apart before grabbing his cane and leading the way out. Newton grabbed his jacket and keys and soon they both sat in silence in the back of the cab on the route to the Berlin-Buch HELIOS hospital. They arrived thirty minutes prior to their appointment and filled out all the necessary paperwork before sitting down in the wooden-framed, striped-cushioned seats of the sparsely populated waiting room. The room itself smelled as clean as it looked with even the magazines on the tables as meticulously arranged as everything else.

Hermann continued to check his watch every few minutes, making Newton grow increasingly nervous. He shifted in his seat, moving from side to side, pulled off his jacket, and wrung his hands, until the door at the back of the room finally opened. They both sat up straighter as a doctor with messy blond hair and the beginnings of a beard stepped into the doorway. He smiled with a bright white grin as he spotted Newton and Newton couldn't help but smile back at his old friend despite the nerves causing him to feel ill.

"Newton!" he called out in a thick German accent as he tried to remain professional.

They both stood at the same time and glanced at each other. Newton could easily read Hermann's facial expressions and the one he wore in that moment was a question. Do you want me to come with you? Newton smiled at him reassuringly and Hermann seemed to relax.

"Come on, man. Come meet Christoph," he said clapping him on the back before they walked over to the door.

Christoph ushered them inside and met Newton in a hug once the door closed and Newton could feel the piercings in his ears brushing across his cheek. "Newt, it's been so long. I almost didn't recognize you," he said enthusiastically as they pulled apart. He kept a hold on Newton's arms, turning them over. "Look at all these tattoos."

"They're full-body, man. You wouldn't believe how many hours I spent in that chair," Newton said, happy to have someone who actually appreciated his ink.

"I don't doubt it. It's great work. You always had a thing for the monsters," he said with a smile as he let Newton's arms go. "But, of course, we're here for more serious matters. Follow me."

He led the way through the halls of offices and rooms and the two of them dutifully followed. He could tell that Hermann seemed tense; it radiated off of him and infected Newton. The muscles in his hands contracted as he balled them into fists and flexed his fingers back out again. They stopped outside of a door that held an engraved plaque with Christoph's name. Christoph opened it and motioned for them to go in ahead of him.

Newton walked into the small office and sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk that appeared to be from the same set as the ones in the waiting room. Hermann occupied the second one as Christoph closed the door and sat in the black leather rolling chair behind the wooden desk that was littered with papers. He smiled at them to put them at ease before holding out his hand to Hermann.

"You must be the man I spoke to on the phone. Dr. Gottlieb, was it?"

"Yes," Hermann replied stiffly, accepting and shaking his hand.

"I've been working with Hermann here for the past ten years or so," Newton chimed in.

"And you both helped to save the world, I hear," Christoph said, looking impressed.

"That's us, man!" Newton beamed as he threw an arm around Hermann's shoulders and drew him in against his will. "Rock star heroes."

"I knew you'd do great things, Newt, but you are quite the man," he said as Newton let Hermann go. "Anyway, back to business. Now, Newt, Hermann here told me that you've been having severe seizures and nosebleeds during sleep, is that right?"

Newton started to fidget again. "Uh, yeah. It's happened twice now. Not last night because I didn't sleep."

"Understandable if that keeps happening," Christoph said with a laugh. "Well, we're here to see what I can do about that. It could be a few things off the top of my head but I'm not about to jump to conclusions without more information. I have one of the MRI's booked for the hour so, just let me get a bit of paperwork in order and then we can head down."

Newton let out a breath he didn't know he was holding as he leaned back in the chair. He looked over at Hermann who met his gaze and they spoke without words, something they'd been able to do easily over the past year. Newton spoke of fear and nerves while Hermann spoke of comfort and reassurance until Newton's emotional spike lessened into a calm hum just beneath the surface. He wanted to reach over and grab Hermann's hand, to feel him there by his side, but he just curled his fingers into his palm instead.

He watched Christoph as he fervently wrote on a few sheets of paper before he picked up a thin tablet on the right side of his desk. Christoph stood up and the two of them followed suit, staring at him expectantly. He beckoned them along, leaving his office to lead them to the MRI center in a nearby wing. They walked into the second room on the right that smelled sterile and looked blindingly white. A giant, hollow, cylindrical machine sat against a wall with little else around it. It looked intimidating to Newton, like the gaping maw of a beast he was about to be fed into.

Newton glanced up and saw the window to the scanner room where Christoph and Hermann would retreat to while he suffered inside the MRI machine. Christoph held out his tablet to Newton along with a tablet pen. He grabbed it from him and stared down at it, scrolling through the long block of text.

"What's this?" he said without looking up.

"A consent form," Christoph replied, crossing his arms. "By signing it, you're saying that you understand the risks involved in getting an MRI scan."

Newton nodded. "Right, right, giant magnet. I'm good," he said, scrolling down to the dotted line.

"Do you know if your tattoo ink carries metal?" Christoph said, pointing at them as Newton signed.

"Yeah, but it'll be fine. I can handle the irritation. I just wanna get this done, dude," he replied as he held out the tablet to Christoph.

Christoph poked at the touch screen for a minute before handing it off to Hermann. "Would you mind holding that for a moment and wait for me in the screening room, just through that door there," he pointed toward a door it the right of the machine. Hermann nodded and left the room before Christoph turned to Newton. "And if you'd go through the door just behind you to the changing room."

Newton glanced behind him to the wooden door and walked through it to a small room with a wooden bench and some cubby shelves to put clothes in. One of the wider shelves held a stack of paper thin hospital gowns. He disrobed and shoved his clothes in one of the shelves before slipping on the awkwardly fitting hospital gown over his white undershirt and boxers. He left the room once he fixed the ridiculous gown to his liking and Christoph led him over to the MRI table where he laid down. He shifted around on the hard slab but couldn't find a comfortable position.

"Normally an MRI tech would do all of this, but seeing as this is a favor, it's, for the most part, off the record," Christoph explained clearly and carefully. "Remember to remain still and hopefully we'll figure this out."

"Hopefully."

A couple of minutes after he left the room, the MRI started, obeying commands from the computer Christoph punched orders into, and the table moved backward into the open mouth of the machine. Once he was as far in as the machine needed him go, his head and shoulders completely surrounded within it, the noises began. It started with the whir of a fan that he could also feel caressing his hair and face. After a few minutes, a banging noise chimed in like a stick on an oil drum. Newton breathed in deeply, trying to get himself to relax, making a mental beat out of the cacophony of sounds and concentrating on it to keep his mind occupied and calm.

To keep his body still for a while seemed simple enough in theory but it proved to be a lot harder in practice. The magnet pulled at the iron pigments in the tattoos near his neck and chest, causing slight pain and severe irritation. On top of that, Christoph kept disrupting his mental rhythm to tell him to stop moving, which he would succeed in doing for all of two minutes.

Despite this, the MRI was able to pick up everything it needed to, giving a clear readout to Christoph and Hermann up in the scanner room. Christoph returned to the room after shutting off the machine and allowed Newton to put his clothes back on before leading him up to the scanner room for the final verdict.

"So, what's the deal, man?" Newton said as they entered the other room.

Newton felt intimidated and wary when Christoph sat down and both he and Hermann looked up at him with unreadable expressions. He swallowed hard and plopped down into a third chair between the two where he could see the computer screens set up on a long table in front of the window to the MRI room. He glanced at the brain scan the MRI spat out and, while he was more of a xenobiologist, he knew enough about the human brain to realize that no clear problem showed up.

"This can't be right," he said with a slight, nervous laugh as he turned to a grim looking Christoph. "There has to be something I'm not seeing."

"I'm afraid not, Newt," he said, his expression faltering, unsure of what feeling to show. "There is nothing wrong with your brain, at least nothing the scan picked up."

"Then do it again!" Newton said, panic causing his voice to rise. "Do it again with the intravenous dye. There has to be something."

Christoph shook his head. "Just from a glance, there's no bleeding, no tumors. You're in perfect health according to this. Hermann was telling me about how the two of you Drifted. I'm not an expert on damage that can occur from the Pons but perhaps something happened then that is not showing up here."

Newton dropped his head in his hands, feeling overwhelmed until a hand pressed against his back. A soft touch to absorb some of the stress. He stole a deep breath and exhaled the dread that rose within him. When he looked back up at Christoph, he felt as calm as he possibly could.

"Thank you for this, man. I appreciate it," he said, remaining calm with a clear head. "I know you must've had to pull a few strings. But yeah, you're probably right. I should see someone who knows about the Pons."

Several ideas floated through his mind on the matter, but he settled on one. He would look into it on his own. He did have a doctorate in biology and he knew enough about the Pons from exposure and experience to piece something together. His confidence grew the more he considered it and he left the hospital in a better mood than he had when he entered it.

He hugged his old friend goodbye before he and Hermann navigated their way out of the building to wait for the second cab that Hermann called for. A short wait later, they were on their way back home, sitting together in the back of the cab in silence as Newton found himself lost in thought. He knew Hermann would tell him to go on sick leave and all of that time at the apartment alone would be ideal to conduct his own research. Hermann never had to know.

When the taxi dropped them off, they walked into their apartment and shrugged out of their jackets. They relaxed, settling into the living room where Hermann sat in one of the chairs with a book, ignoring Newton who was sprawled out on the couch, flipping through the channels without actually watching anything. As he changed through all of the local news channels, thinking about how bored he felt, Hermann finally spoke up after remaining silent since they found out the news.

"I know what you're planning to do," he said, not looking up from his book.

Newton froze, slowly looking up from the screen to Hermann's face. "What do you mean?"

Hermann looked up at him over his reading glasses with a disapproving stare that made him want to shrink back into the couch. "I'm not ignorant, Newton, don't treat me like I am. I know you want to look into this yourself."

"And?" Newton said hesitantly.

"And I believe it's the best route possible given the situation," Hermann said, looking back down at his book.

"What? Seriously?" Newton replied, shifting his body until he sat on the couch correctly.

"Yes, quite seriously. You're one of the best in your field, Newton. You have the knowledge and the experience and the capacity to learn what you need to efficiently. I only ask that you consult someone who knows the effects of the Pons System better than you," Hermann said, turning the page.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Will do, man," Newton said, excitedly.

"See that you do. And please, inform me if you intend to do anything that may result in your death," Hermann said, lowering his book for a moment. "I'd like to see you make it through this alive and well."

He remembered Hermann's panic and worry when he found him after his solo Drift. Newton nodded his agreement and Hermann seemed satisfied. They both returned to their respective silences and Newton finally found some old cartoons to watch. After a while, Hermann stood up to retire to bed. He placed the book back on its shelf and turned to go but hesitated when he saw Newton.

"It's all right, Herm," Newton said, noticing his hesitation. "I'll be fine."

"Are you going to stay up?" he said, sounding concerned.

"I dunno yet. I might try to sleep. You never know, maybe this thing will stop on its own. Maybe the scan being clear meant it was gone."

"Maybe," Hermann said, appearing unsure.

"Even if it's not, those two episodes I had weren't life threatening. I can survive until I figure it out," he said, trying to reassure him but it only seemed to set him more on edge. "I'll be fine, Hermann, I swear. Besides, our rooms are across from each other. You'll know if something happens."

Hermann nodded. "All right. Goodnight, I suppose."

"Night, dude," he replied as Hermann left the room.

Newton stayed up as long as he could after that, staying conscious until the early morning hours, but once he started drifting off while he lay practically upside down on the couch, he knew it was time to at least try and sleep. He shut everything off in the room before going into his room and pulling on his pajamas. His bed didn't really seem that appealing as he looked at the disheveled covers, unmade since the last time he cleaned the sheets. Still, he knew that he could fall asleep standing up if he waited long enough, given that it had happened before, so he decided he might as well be comfortable as he suffered.

As he lay in his bed, he felt fear. He didn't know if it would happen again or not despite the results of his scan and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out. In his bed, surrounded by comfort, security, and the weight of being depleted of all energy knocked him out against his will and stole him away. No flashes of images barraged him, there was nothing except darkness, but Newton didn't feel like he was alone.

Another being in his mind seemed to circle his consciousness like a predator, leaving Newton feeling scared and trapped. After a few minutes, the presence stopped pacing and faced him, as much as a disembodied manifestation could. Newton could feel everything even if he couldn't see it. Whatever it was loomed over him, holding him in place through sheer intimidation. When it decided to communicate, it did so on its own terms, choosing to speak without showing itself like the last time.

_**Newton.** _

_…Yes?_  Newton answered, feeling only slightly ridiculous for talking to a dream.

_**Good. You are listening.** _

_Dude, you're echoing through my head. I don't think I could avoid it,_ he said, regardless of the chill of fear he felt.

The voice seemed to ignore him.  _ **I believe you hold the potential to help us, Newton.**_

_Help? Help who? Why would I want to?_

_**Help us. Help us take what is ours. Let us have your mind.** _

_My mind? Help you with what? I am so lost._

The being hit him with images of the Breach, energy crackling as the Earth split open. His consciousness shuddered from the implication. The presence crowded closer to him but he shook away the growing panic. If he woke up, it would all go away. It was only a dream, after all, even if it did feel real.

_Why would I ever agree to that?_ Newton said, feeling the heart in his body start to race.

_**You have little choice.** _

_Well, I must have some choice or you wouldn't be asking. Why do you even need permission? You're already in my head._

_**We are only able to enter your unconscious mind when it is free of defenses. When you awaken, you push us out.** _ _**Poor choices carry consequences, Newton.** _

_What the hell is that supposed to mean?_

_**It would be unwise to say no.** _

Newton laughed, the sound resonating strangely off the walls of his mind.  _What are you gonna do? Give me nightmares to death?_

The presence bristled angrily, causing an unpleasant static. The charge shocked him, probing into his brain but he was unable to stop it. He felt it poking around, searching for something that Newton couldn't place. It wasn't until it found what it was looking for that he figured out. It wanted to find a weakness.

It pulled out a memory he knew well, one of the first time he met Hermann. Ten years ago, both in their twenties, and Hermann appeared to be just as old and uptight then as he made himself out to be in the present. Back then Newton's arms were bare of tattoos but the beginnings of Trespasser, the first kaiju, were already inked on his right shoulder.

Both fresh out the Academy and recently enlisted in K-Science, they were immediately assigned to work together. The same personality tests used to pair together Jaeger pilots were used on the scientists to create the most productive and cohesive teams possible and the two of them learned they could only be paired with each other. So, as teams of three or four were assigned lab space within the Shatterdome, the two met each other in the smallest lab. The electricity of judgment and competitive tension was instantaneous.

They looked each other in the eye and shook hands, introducing themselves in turn just to be polite under the scrutiny of their superiors. In that moment, he decided Hermann was someone he would never choose to be friends with. It baffled him why the test paired them together unless they were simply the two remainders that couldn't be trusted to work alone. He didn't know how accurate it actually was, that he'd just met the most important person in his life.

_What about him?_ Newton hissed, all humor gone.

_**If you refuse, we will move to him.** _

_So what? You need permission. If I'm saying no then he definitely will._

_**No. His mind is strong and of use but his body is frail. He does not suit our needs.** _

_What do you mean?_

_**If you refuse us, we will move to him. We will take what is useful and burn the rest.** _

In the next instant, his mind was flooded with images of Hermann on his bed, seizing and bleeding from the nose and mouth just as Newton had more than once. He saw himself rushing to his aid, shaking him, screaming his name, but he refused to rouse from his sleep. Hermann choked, drowning in the blood, and Newton leaned him forward to drain it out, but he stopped moving.

Newton froze, staring at him before shaking him slightly, as if he were only in a deep sleep. He set him down carefully on the bed before checking his pulse. Panic set into his expression as he started CPR while screaming for help. His face looked indecisive before he finally stopped for a moment and ran off to grab a phone. He dialed and spoke to emergency services as he continued to press down on his chest. When the call ended, so did Newton's hope. He dropped the phone and stopped the compressions. He held Hermann's body in his arms, sobbing into the crook of his neck until the ambulance finally arrived.

_NO!_ Newton cried, the voice in his head cracking with devastation.

_**THEN SAY THE WORDS.** _

Newton hesitated. It was only a dream, wasn't it? What if it wasn't? He could feel hot tears running down his cheeks. Something in his gut told him he couldn't take the chance. _Fine. You have my permission. Just leave him alone._

The darkness melted away and his eyes opened to his room. His body was propped up in a sitting position, being held up by a hand clamped on each shoulder. He shifted his gaze and looked up at a terrified looking Hermann as he could feel tears still streaming of their own accord. His throat felt raw again, like the first time, and no sound left his mouth when he tried to speak.

"Oh, thank god," Hermann said in a whisper as he moved one of his hands to the side of Newton's face. "You were screaming for me in your sleep. You wouldn't wake up."

Another wave of tears bubbled up as he stared at Hermann's expression of pure concern. He grabbed the front of Hermann's shirt and pulled him down into his arms where he cried, leaving blood and water stains on the soft, blue collar. Hermann didn't hesitate, he simply pulled him in closer and held him without a word, letting him cry until he couldn't anymore.

When he finally stopped, he noticed that the fear he felt had gone as well, as if it leaked out along with the tears and blood. He pulled back a little just so he could look at Hermann who still appeared worried.

"Sorry about the blood," Newton said hoarsely.

"It doesn't matter," Hermann replied, his gaze remaining on Newton. "What did you dream of that scared you so much?"

Newton shook his head and pulled his arms away. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Newton," Hermann said, placing a hand on his upper arm.

"No. No, I can't. I really…" he trailed off, looking up with pleading eyes.

Hermann nodded. "Is there anything you need?" he said as he moved to stand. "Aspirin? A n—"

Newton panicked again, remembering what the voice in his head showed him. He reached out and pulled Hermann back down when he was in midsentence, keeping a hold on the front of his shirt. "Don't go. Please."

Hermann appeared startled and uncertain until he saw the raw fear in Newton. "Okay."

They both lay down and Hermann allowed Newton to rest against him, his arms wrapped around his torso. Hermann held him and he felt safe. He felt Hermann was safe as long as he stayed where he could keep an eye on him. He didn't sleep, he couldn't bring himself to, but he rest his head on Hermann's chest and listened to his breaths even out and his heart pound. He didn't need anything else to keep him going.


	4. Chapter 4

As dawn broke, Newton still felt shaken. He clung to Hermann like a lifeline, the only thing to keep him afloat in the middle of the ocean. Hermann kept a hand on his back even as he slept, a reinforcement that he was there for him. Newton felt comforted by it, but not wholly. He didn't know when he would feel completely at ease again, not with those things in his head.

Despite the physical symptoms, Newton began to wonder at some point during the night if he was losing his mind. Deep down, he knew he wasn't, that something about his brain was physically damaged, but hearing voices in his head didn't bode well in any situation. He thought about a lot as the hours passed, about how he could fix it, where he would begin his research, if anything he heard in his head was real or not. The last one distressed him the most.

If the voices weren't real, it meant something psychological on top of what was happening to him. If they were, it meant something a lot worse. He clutched Hermann tighter at the thought, causing him to groan and attempt to shift in his hold. Hermann moved his hands to Newton's arm, trying to gently pry it into a looser grip.

"I think you're crushing my ribs, Newton," he said, sounding strained.

"Sorry," he replied, unwrapping his arms from Hermann's torso. "You can, um, go back to your own room. If you want. I'm totally fine now."

Hermann glanced over at him and Newton hoped he didn't look like he was lying. He didn't want to be a burden. Hermann gave him a small, sad smile before throwing the covers off him and slowly pushing his body out of bed. Sadness swept over Newton but he tried to pat it down, knowing it was ridiculous to think he might stay.

"I'm going to go make some tea. D'you want me to bring you a cup of coffee?" Hermann said tiredly as he grabbed his cane from beside the bed.

"Oh," Newton said, surprised. "No. No thank you. I'll be out in a minute to make it myself."

Hermann paused at the door and looked back. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"As okay as I can be."

Hermann's brows creased in concern before he left the room. Newton lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling for a moment or two before he rolled out. When he stood up, he felt the weight of days without sleep press down on him, making each step a huge effort. He stood straighter, trying to shake it off for Hermann's sake. He didn't need to be worrying about him when there were more important things, like his work.

He rubbed his eyes before slipping on his glasses and walked out of his room with his head held high. Hermann placed a kettle on the stove and turned on the coffee machine when he walked into the kitchen. He ambled over and hopped onto one of the counters, sliding a little and swinging his legs back and forth as Hermann shot him a dirty look. Newton beamed at him and Hermann shook his head, turning to concentrate on the caffeinated beverages.

He sat and watched as the coffee dispensed into the pot and the kettle started to whistle a few minutes later. Hermann deftly poured out the water into a waiting cup with a tea bag before moving to the coffee, spooning sugar into both. He stirred them and handed the coffee to Newton before carrying his tea to the dining room. Newton frowned, hopping off the counter to follow after him.

"Something on your mind, dude?" he said as he set down his mug and sat in the chair next to his.

Hermann looked at Newton as if he just dropped IQ points. "I wonder. You still have blood on your face, by the way."

Newton reached up and touched his face just under his nose, feeling dried flakes of blood. "I'll be okay. You don't have to worry about me."

"If I don't, who will?" Hermann said without looking at him.

"My family?"

"And you want to tell them about this?"

Newton's frown deepened considerably.

"Precisely," Hermann said, staring into his tea. "I'm all you have. Of course I worry."

Newton gulped down his coffee, unsure of what to say. "Well, don't completely focus on it. We both have work to do."

"Don't flatter yourself, Newton," he said as he stood from the table. "I don't think about you that often."

Newton stared after him with a smug expression, wondering just how often he thought of him. When Hermann closed the door to his bedroom after walking inside, Newton cleaned the blood from his face and fetched his phone, calling the Shatterdome to use his accumulated sick time. His boss was reluctant to let him go, saying that they really needed both him and Hermann to further their research, but after explaining the severe, unexplained nosebleeds she allowed him two weeks off.

Newton lay down on his bed, listening to Hermann preparing for work as he thought about what he would do with his first day of no work. He could try and get a hold of someone like Mako or Tendo who knew more about the Pons than he did or do his own research on it. Hermann interrupted his thoughts when he appeared in his doorway and cleared his throat.

"You didn't take time off to lie about," he said in a nagging tone.

"I'm mentally planning, Hermann," he snapped.

Hermann narrowed his eyes slightly. "Make good use of your time. You need to recover as soon as possible."

"Okay, okay, I'm moving," Newton said, rolling off the bed.

He landed on his feet and followed Hermann out into the kitchen. A few minutes later, as Newton was making actual food for breakfast rather than just a cup of coffee, a taxi pulled up to their apartment. Hermann pulled on his parka and Newton walked away from his exact science of milk to cereal ratio to see him out. He paused at the door, turning to Newton with his free hand on the doorknob.

"Remember to ask for help if you need it," he said seriously. "You may have a genius level intellect but you can't do everything on your own, as much as I know you'd like to."

Newton nodded, feeling the seriousness radiating from him. "I'll do my best," he said, adding in his own mind that he could make no promises regarding something like that. Asking for help wasn't his forte.

"Also, try not to disturb the man upstairs. I'm almost certain he files more complaints about you than I do and we don't need to be evicted."

Newton grinned. "It's not my fault the dude doesn't appreciate good music."

"Very few people appreciate any music being blasted so loud that the walls shake. I'll call when I'm on my way home. Don't destroy anything," Hermann said as he opened the door and walked out.

"You're such a wet blanket, Herm," Newton called.

He thought he saw a smile cross Hermann's face for a second as he maneuvered himself into the backseat of the taxi. Newton waved him off until he was out of sight and closed the door, feeling the emptiness and silence of the apartment. He frowned as he tried to remember the last time they were apart and his memory failed him. Ever since they first teamed up, they'd worked together night and day, always just a hallway apart when they slept. Sickness had never been an issue working in Shatterdomes as the infirmaries were well staffed and stocked. Unfortunately, his illness was different with no apparent cure.

He walked back to his room where he settled down at his metal computer desk where his self-built and upgraded computer sat. He mostly used it for computer games but it proved that his engineering degree didn't go to waste. He brought up his internet browser and searched for some scientific papers on the Pons, focusing on the creator's, Dr. Lightcap's, findings. He could certainly build a Pons System, as proven by his first Drift, but he didn't know all of the effects it could have other than nosebleeds and temporarily ruptured blood vessels in the eye.

What he could find of Dr. Lightcap's research proved useful in regards to certain effects such as health improvement and slight personality adaption. That made sense to him given his experiences over the past year. He'd noticed that there were times when Hermann didn't need to rely so much on his cane, though he never mentioned it. He also noticed that their personalities had leveled out some, causing them to clash less.

Out of all the research he sifted through, not one paper said anything about hearing voices other than that of one's Drift partner. He rested his forehead on his arms, a frustrated sigh on his lips. He abandoned Dr. Lightcap's work for the time being and looked for other research, experiments, theories, hypotheses, making use of his work status to access semi-classified papers. In order to access anything more classified, he'd have to use a work computer or hack into the Shatterdome mainframe. He made a mental note to convince Hermann to download any relevant information onto a flashdrive. Once again, after looking at paper after paper, it all turned up nothing pertinent to his condition.

Newton stood from the desk chair and threw himself onto his bed, burying his face in his pillow to muffle the loud groans of irritation and disappointment. He checked the time on his digital alarm clock and it said that about five hours had passed, making it two in the afternoon. His eyes felt heavy and painful after staring at the screen for so long and a body-wracking yawn prompted him to make a cup of coffee.

He padded out to the kitchen and prepared the coffee machine before turning it on. A strange feeling in his head blossomed at the back like a dull itch. Absent-mindedly, he reached up and scratched his scalp as he walked to the cupboard with the mugs. The itch spread rapidly, consuming his whole brain, and no matter how much he scratched it didn't stop. He reached up and grabbed a random mug, just holding it for a moment. After a blink, the itching ceased and the front door opened behind him. He turned to see Hermann shutting the door behind him before he hung up his parka.

"Hey, Herm!" Newton said happily. "What are you doing back so early?"

"Early?" Hermann said, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Newton, it's ten o'clock. What were you doing that you didn't hear my call?"

Newton stared hard at Hermann with a matching expression. "Ten? That's a joke, right? You've finally learned how to tell a joke?"

"Why would I joke about the time?" Hermann said incredulously.

Newton looked to the nearest clock, a digital display on the microwave, and felt shocked to see that it confirmed Hermann's statement. Somehow, eight hours had passed in a literal blink of an eye. His stomach lurched and flipped over as his vision grew fuzzy around the edges. He reached out and grabbed a counter to steady himself.

"Are you all right? You look ill," Hermann said, concerned.

"I'm, uh, I'm fine," he said with a shaky smile as he set down the mug. "Working too hard, I guess. How the time flies."

Hermann frowned. "What time did you think it was?"

"Well, not ten, that's for sure," he said with a short-lived laugh.

"Newton, is this a new symptom?"

Newton panicked, chewing on his lip as he quickly pondered his options. Truth or lie. He didn't want to concern Hermann further. It was his problem and he would figure it out on his own.

"I'm fine, Hermann! I just got lost in the research." He seemed set as ease and Newton felt his own stress ease slightly. "How was your day? Any huge breakthroughs?"

Hermann shook his head as he walked to the fridge. "No, no, not yet, but I feel like I'm close to something."

"Close to what?"

"Can't say just yet," he said, making a dissatisfied grunt as he looked within and didn't find what he wanted. He closed it and turned to Newton. "I can't until I'm positive about it."

"That could take years, Herm. Bouncing ideas might help," he said as he crossed his arms.

"That usually ends in an argument."

"A helpful argument!" Newton replied cheerily.

Hermann shook his head and walked off. "We'll see."

Once Hermann was in his room with the door securely shut, Newton dropped his calm façade, feeling the panic rise and his heart beat fast. He clutched his chest with one hand and held on to a counter for support with the other. He brain seemed incapable of forming a coherent thought other than: Oh my god, what's happening to me?

He sunk to the floor and rested his head in his hands, trying to work out all of the possibilities that didn't involve insanity. Exhaustion, confusion, more unknown side effects. He calmed down a little as he listed them off like a mantra of rationality. Yet, despite the cause, he just lost eight hours of time and anything could've happened. He woke up in the same position, but did he really stand in one spot for that long? He didn't and couldn't know. That scared him the most.

After a few deep breaths, he stretched out his arms and legs, feeling a dull ache start to set in them. He pulled his body up to his feet and swayed a little, exhaustion catching up with him again. The last thing he wanted to do was sleep, the thought of it made him feel ill and terrified, but he couldn't keep staying up each night. It would kill him eventually. A resigned groan forced its way through his lips as Hermann exited his room.

"Are you all right, Newton?" he asked as he walked down the hall into the kitchen.

"Yeah, fine!" he replied with a shaky smile.

Hermann frowned. "I just came to extend the offer of you sleeping in my room tonight. In the chair or on the floor," he added, clearing his throat as a flush colored his cheeks. "You seem to sleep easier when not alone."

Newton could barely register what he was saying. He grinned at Hermann. "I appreciate it but, uh, no. I'll… be fine. I hope."

"If you're sure," Hermann said, staring at Newton as if trying to read him. "Then I'm off to bed. Call out if you need me."

"Will do, Herm." Newton replied cheerily, keeping up the act until he was out of sight.

He stared off after him as if the space where he once stood would give him answers but it only gave him silence and a deep seated feeling of dread. Maybe he should've accepted his offer. Maybe he had a point. Yet, the whole situation was something he wanted to deal with on his own. The problems belonged to him, so the solution should be born of him as well. He didn't need Hermann to help because he was a genius all on his own with six doctorates to prove it. Still, he caught himself staring at Hermann's door as he passed it on the way to his own.

Once inside with the door shut, he made himself as comfortably uncomfortable as possible. He dressed in his work clothes, pulled all of the comfortable blankets from his bed, leaned his back up against the headboard, and turned on the lamp on his nightstand. He sat with his laptop-one gifted from his work for work purposes that he wasn't supposed to customize but did anyway- and decided to spend his time attempting once more to gather relevant research.

Hours passed, bringing the dusky hours to blackness before the bleeding of early morning. By that time, as the sun edged its way over the horizon, Newton passed out without realizing it. One moment, he was questing on an old fantasy RPG he found lying around during one of many breaks, the next, the creak and click of his door shutting woke him with a start that caused his heart to race.

The open laptop that once rested on his chest fell off onto the bed beside him, screen black and asleep. His white shirt lay untucked and wrinkled and his tie wrapped around his neck like a starved, black boa constrictor. His wiped away some drool from the edge of his mouth before standing up, stretching out the kinks caused by sleeping awkwardly.

He left his room, walking down the hall to the kitchen where the coffee lived, and discovered Hermann who was washing up his dishes from breakfast.

"Dude, why were you in my room this morning?" Newton said groggily.

"I was checking up on you," Hermann mumbled as he scraped at a plate with the briny side of the dish sponge. "You seem to have slept without issue."

"Yeah, well," Newton replied, fixing his shirt and tie, "do it a little quieter next time."

Hermann shot him an unamused glare.

"You cannot take a joke. Why do I like you? Seriously," Newton said with a small smile he struggled to hide.

"I ask myself that each day," Hermann said in a deadpan tone. "I have yet to find a logical answer."

Newton grinned widely at him as Hermann looked over his shoulder for a moment, sporting an endeared-if not mildly tired-smile of his own.

"I am pleased to see you well. I take it you made progress yesterday? I apologize for not asking last night as I was caught up in my own research," Hermann said as he rinsed off each dish and placed it in the rack beside the sink to dry.

"I totally understand, dude," Newton said, leaning his lower back up against the counter beside Hermann. A short, unsure smile crossed his face as he thought about the day before. "Actually, I, uh, didn't find anything. Not yet, anyway."

Hermann narrowed his eyes at him. "Then your condition is improving on its own?"

Flashes of the day before plagued him, the time he lost, the panic he felt. He wiped it away and replaced it with a cheerful expression. "I guess so? I'm going to keep staying here, doing research, until I know for sure."

Hermann nodded, his expression turning into a frown.

"Don't give me that look, dude. I know things like this don't just come and go for no reason. I'm gonna figure it out."

"I hope so," Hermann replied as he set out the last of the dishes to dry.

"Don't worry about it," Newton said with a reassuring smile even though every form of worry roiled within him in that moment.

Hermann still appeared unsure, but walked away to finish preparing for work even though Newton could tell he had more to say. He glanced around the kitchen, finding that he barely had the stomach to eat despite the intrusive rumble he felt in his gut. His whole body shook with nerves and anxiety, wondering if or when he would lose time again. It was that thought that turned his stomach from hunger to nausea. Still, he checked the fridge in case something caught his eye but ultimately left with nothing.

He wandered back to his room, leaving the door open to the uncontrollable mess and sat down at his desktop computer. As Hermann readied himself for work, Newton searched for possible causes of lost time. He became so absorbed in the research, he could only offer a grunt of "mhm" when Hermann proclaimed he was leaving. With each link he clicked on, he drew the conclusion that none of the results fit him. He never harbored much hope to begin with that it would relate to something other than his unexplained condition, but confirming it caused a sinking feeling, like he were dropping through the ocean waters, through the Breach, unable to swim to the surface.

Hopelessness and helplessness ravaged his mind, leaving him more lethargic than he'd ever felt in his life. He sat back, staring at the computer screen without really seeing it, and sighed deeply. Newton remained in that one position for a few minutes until he gained the energy and will to pick his body up and move into the living area. He promptly collapsed face first onto the couch, groaning and feeling lost.

Hours passed and he didn't bother moving from his spot for anything but food and bathroom breaks. He spent the time playing video games on the Playstation 6 so that he didn't have to think about anything other than killing tangible enemies until he sunk into trance. In the middle of a boss battle, Newton felt an itch in his brain, like a thought he couldn't remember nagging at him, but one he needed to physically scratch. He paused the game to reach up and scratch at his scalp when a feeling of déjà vu hit him hard. He felt sick when he realized why, as he felt the same exact thing just before he lost time the day before. His panic level rose as he looked frantically around the room as if he could grab hold of something to keep him grounded in the present.

He blinked and opened his eyes to see the night sky, freckled with stars shining above his head. The air assaulted him, cool and sharp, claws dragging across his flesh, through the leather of his jacket. He staggered back a couple of steps as if struck in the chest until his back his a wall. He jumped forward and turned to see the brick wall of an old gas station shop that had gone out of business long ago, its sign rusted and broken, the windows boarded up, appearing wholly unwelcoming.

Newton swallowed hard, feeling his anxiety building fast as he looked around for anything familiar and found nothing. He caught his reflection in one of the boarded windows, lit by a nearby streetlamp, and could've sworn he saw something that glowed an iridescent blue. He turned and saw nothing of the sort. Each breath grew shallower, his throat raked raw by each intake of the chilled air, until he was hyperventilating.

He backed into the wall of the store once more, gasping for air without ever seeming to get any. His chest tightened, ribs crushing around his heart and lungs. Frantic hands clutched at his chest as he sunk to the sidewalk. Just as he felt like he was about to fall fully into the rising panic attack, his mind grew quiet, his body numb, feeling absolutely nothing.

He sat on the emptying sidewalk, only seeing and hearing, no thoughts crossing his mind and no emotions to disrupt the normal operation of his body. He breathed in and out rhythmically, calmly, staring straight ahead at another dark building across the street.

_**Human emotions,**_ a voice boomed in his head.  _ **They are… so loud.**_

Slowly, the feeling returned to his body, starting in his feet and working its way up until he could feel the blood leaking from his nose, dripping down to his chin. He reached up to brush it away before it stained his shirt and looked down at it in the dim light of the streetlamp. It didn't look right to Newton. The color appeared too dark, muddled, and seemed to be more purple than any shade of red he'd ever seen. He chalked it up to the poor lighting but with what had been happening, he wouldn't have been surprised.

A wet feeling coated his inner ears and he knew he'd find blood there too. He rested his back against the cool, crumbling brick with a sick feeling in his stomach and a buzzing in his brain like radio static. He looked up into the night sky, feeling so small and alone.

Terrified.

He stared hard into the black void, between the stars, past solar systems and galaxies. He pictured the Anteverse in his mind, the red hellscape, and whispered out into space.

"Help me."


	5. Chapter 5

Newton Geiszler curled up on the sidewalk, surrounded by silence as all the local people were probably long gone. His mind felt blank except for the buzzing that remained from being taken over. The nauseated feeling in his gut rose and fell as he tried not to throw up. The only valid conclusion to what happened to him surfaced. The Precursors. Everything he dreamt that night happened. His brain, his precious brain, still connected to the hivemind, no longer only responded to his commands. The beings that created the kaiju in order to claim the Earth as their own sunk their claws in with his permission and refused to let go. Terror had never sickened or paralyzed him as it did in that moment.

There was too much to process, too many implications, too many consequences. Once all of it hit him, he simply shut down, curling in on himself in the dark silence. He didn't know the time or where he was, but it didn't matter. The world didn't exist to him. He stayed in that position for a while until he heard a pair of lone footsteps moving toward him. Like a stone hitting a window, his state of mind shattered, reality rushing back to him as he looked up.

An older man with tired eyes, greying brown hair, and a thin face walked down the sidewalk, seeming scared and nervous. He moved at a fast pace as he furtively glanced around as if something might jump out at him. When he stepped into the area lit by the streetlamp, he looked down at Newton, who stared back curiously. The man jumped back a foot before shoving a shaky hand into his pocket to pull out a blade that gleamed in the light.

Newton leapt to his feet, hands up in immediate surrender as he backed away. "Dude, I'm not looking for trouble."

"Ich kenn dich. Bleib weg von mir," he said in a frightened tone.  _I know you. You stay away from me._

"Ich weiß nicht was du meinst. Ich habe dich noch nie in meinem Leben gesehen," Newton said, switching to his native tongue.  _I don't know what you mean. I've never seen you before in my life._

The man swiped at him and Newton moved swiftly back, avoiding confrontation. Newton flinched, wondering if he could outrun the maniac.

"Verschwinde, Dämon. Komm nicht wieder, sonst werde ich die Polizei involvieren!" he shouted as he scrambled across the street, facing away from Newton.  _Go away, monster. Don't come back or I'll involve the police!_

"Ich habe nichts getan!" he responded.  _I didn't even do anything!_  Then he hesitated. "Unless… did I?"

Newton's body felt heavy to carry with the weight of the truth on his mind. He staggered back into the wall and stared as the man ran out of sight. He sunk back onto the sidewalk, feeling the cold air encase him, and he wondered how he was going to get back home. Some time later, he didn't know how long, he heard a familiar ringtone.

The sound was the cry of Mutavore, the kaiju that last attacked Sydney, from a sound byte Tendo has graciously recorded and given to him. He used to love it, yet when he heard the horrid cry on loop, it caused a shiver to run up his spine. His hands fumbled, searching his pockets for the phone he didn't know he had on him. He discovered it in his jacket, the roar growing in volume out of the muffled confines of his zipped pocket. Newton only spared a passing glance at the photo of Hermann on the screen, his face barely visible through the spaces of his fingers as he'd tried to block the camera. He hesitated, but pressed the answer button and brought the phone to his ear.

"Hey!" Newton said in a poor attempt at normalcy.

"Where are you!?" Hermann shouted, sounding like he could've been there with him, screaming in his ear.

"I'm good, thanks for asking," Newton replied with a small smirk to himself.

"This isn't funny, Newton," he hissed. "You've been gone all night. It's almost four in the morning. You left no note, no phone calls."

"Dude, when did you become my mother?"

"I am not your mother!" he said, his voice rising ever higher in volume. "I am your colleague and friend. You have been exhibiting symptoms of an unexplained medical condition. I have a right to be concerned."

Newton frowned, plucking at his shoelaces with his free hand. "Sorry, Hermann."

"You should be," he chastised, but with much less venom. "What happened? Where did you go?"

"Uh," Newton said as he tried to think of a way to explain his behavior. "Well, I went out for a walk, you know, and I, uh, I guess I got lost." He punctuated the last sentence with a nervous laugh.

"Lost? Newton, how could you get lost?"

"Not paying attention to where I was going?"

Hermann sighed and Newton could just picture him pinching the bridge of his nose before looking at him disapprovingly. It was just like after he would find things left in places they didn't belong. Mugs, plates, kaiju innards. Newton wished it could be that simple again.

"Give me a moment, I'll find where you are?" Hermann said, exasperated.

"What? How?" Newton said, stunned until he pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it. "Hermann, did you chip my phone?"

"Must we argue about this now?" Hermann's tinny voice said as the sound carried from a foot away.

"I'm not a child, Hermann!" Newton complained at the phone screen.

"You have the behavior and emotional maturity of one, Newton. Just be happy I did or else you'd be stranded," Hermann said. Newton could hear the sound of his fingers gliding over laptop keys in the background as he pressed the phone back to his ear.

"Fine, I admit it's useful this once, but I'm taking it out when I get home."

"Do what you wish. I just hope you don't get lost again."

Newton grumbled bitterly to himself as he could feel Hermann's smug aura through the phone. A moment of silence followed as Hermann waited for the tracker to locate him but the silence lasted longer than it should have. Newton could feel his anxiety levels rise again, his mind racing at where he could possibly be for Hermann to take so long to respond.

"…Herm?" Newton said with all the care of a man dropped into a lion enclosure.

"What are you doing in Lichtenberg?" Hermann asked calmly, confusion feathering the edges of his tone.

Shock ran through him like a lightning strike as he processed that information. Lichtenberg. It certainly wasn't a leisurely walk away from their apartment. Newton felt so surprised he almost started laughing but didn't for fear he might throw up from all of the other emotions roiling around inside of him.

"Uh, hah, funny story," he said, swallowing down the bile in his throat. "Maybe one for when you pick me up?"

He could sense Hermann's anger flare and Newton flinched as if he felt it strike.

"You know where you are. Call a cab for yourself," Hermann said shortly before hanging up.

Newton flipped his head back in a huff of sadness and frustration, forgetting there was a brick wall behind him before his head collided with it. He hissed in pain as a blinding light passed before his eyes. Tears formed and fell both from the intense throbbing and his overwhelming array of emotions so powerful all he wanted to do was lay down on the sidewalk and sleep. He reached up to wipe away the streaks before anyone could walk by and noticed that dirt and grease covered his palms.

His teeth sunk into his bottom lip to hold back a second round of tears as he cleaned off his hands on his jeans. He didn't want to know why in regards to the grime on his palms or why he sat on a sidewalk in the Lichtenberg district. He didn't care anymore; he just wanted it to stop. The cold of night settled into his bones and he shivered.

He knew he had no choice but to call a taxi, though the last place he wanted to be was at home. Newton looked up the closest service and called, forced to wait in the harsh chill until it arrived fifteen minutes later. He picked up his freezing, weak, and stressed body and carried it into the backseat of the taxi. When the man at the wheel asked for his destination, he considered it for a long moment before answering.

"The Berlin Shatterdome. Danke."

 

 

A mix of relief for the present and dread for the immediate future settled in Newton's gut as he stepped out of the taxi after paying the driver, clearing away the flurry that warred within him. He absorbed the sight of the Shatterdome, a temporary sanctuary from Hermann's wrath and his own ruin, before walking up to the elevator entrance. He patted down his jacket for his keys and ID card, feeling thankful that he never picked up the habit of cleaning out his pockets.

After scanning his credentials to open the door, he rode the elevator down to his research floor. The resounding silence of nighttime inactivity made him uneasy even though he knew other people in other parts of the dome were probably still hard at work. The massive size of the dome made it so that he was as likely to run into another person at night as one man in a seemingly abandoned city.

He walked off to his lab, footsteps echoing off the walls in a way that made him think of a protagonist in a horror film, unaware and all alone until the murderer tried to grab him. Thankfully, he reached the door without being murdered and unlocked it, being sure to close it behind him in order to bring less attention to his presence there. He paused for a moment, taking in the darkness around him before flicking on light switches by the door to awaken the blinding fluorescents.

He glanced around the room, taking note of the changes after not being around for a few days. It looked considerably neater, which was something he stored away to complain about later. The interns appeared to be furthering their personal projects based on the amount of shelf space occupied and a few pieces of new equipment in the room taken from other, unused areas. The third change he noticed was the additions on Hermann's chalkboard. Newton guessed it was part of the possible breakthrough he had spoken about the other day.

The lines of equations didn't mean much to him from only a quick scan but he felt drawn to them somehow in a way he never had been before. He unconsciously stepped forward, moving toward the nearest table, and thought to toss his keys on it just to hear something more substantial than the blood rushing in his ears. He grabbed a chair that sat a few inches away and dragged it out, letting the feet scrape along the floor, before plopping down in it.

His eyes remained affixed to the white chalk lines even as he sat and adjusted his position until he felt as comfortable as possible in the hard seat. Their meaning didn't register with him but he found himself tracing over each number, letter, and sign with delicate care over and over until he could have recited it. His mind slowly fogged over and he felt so transfixed to the board that he didn't even realize it. The sight of the chalk boards dimmed around the edges until it turned black but in his mind, he continued to trace the equations.

 

 

Newton hardly remembered slipping into unconsciousness, but a pair of hands shaking his body alerted his mind to the fact that it had stopped actively working in the middle of what he'd been doing last. Whatever that was. A groan rumbled in his chest as he pulled his face from the metal table, breaking the plaster of drool that had been holding him there. His neck made a sharp complaint as he straightened his body out in the chair. He craned it around, trying to work out the kinks when he spotted the unreadable face of one Hermann Gottlieb to his right.

He froze, his muscles tensing as he fought to not shy away from him. "…Hey, Herm," he said, attempting a smile that quickly faltered.

The features of Hermann's face shifted just enough that Newton could see his anger. "You don't come home all night, leaving me sleepless from worry, then I go to work to find you here?"

Newton rubbed his sleep blurred eyes mostly to avoid Hermann's stare, not wanting to talk. He listened as the click of Hermann's shoes and cane moved along the floor and around the table. Quiet settled over him once more for a long moment until a reverberating crash startled him so badly that he jumped up from the chair. Hermann stared at him with the heat of a forge as he removed his cane from the tabletop to lean on it once more.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" he asked, his tone dark.

Newton flinched, moving his eyes to stare at his feet. "I didn't want to go home."

"And you couldn't have informed me?"

"You were upset," he mumbled.

"Well, Newton, what am I now?" he shouted, slamming his hand down on the table. He blew air hard out of his nose like a riled bull. "Don't answer that. I don't have time for this."

Shame burned on Newton's cheeks and in his chest as Hermann turned his back on him.

"Go home, Newton. I have work to do. We'll discuss this when I get back."

Newton opened his mouth to answer but he hesitated. What could he say? Any words that tumbled out wouldn't be any better than a band-aid on a gaping wound so he closed his mouth, grabbed his keys, and left.

 

 

Guilt chased him all the way from the Shatterdome to the apartment he shared with Hermann, making him feel so heavy and ashamed that he almost didn't want to walk through the door because he didn't think he deserved the roof over his head. Despite all of that, he didn't regret not telling Hermann the truth. In his mind, it was better that he remained angry at him then have to be in a constant state of worry and fear.

Not only that, but a small part of him, a tiny sliver at the back of his mind, felt panic about how Hermann might react. The both of them followed the path of logic and rationale. To learn that your work partner, your friend, was connected to the enemy they'd been fighting for so many years. The choices to be made were few: experimentation or death. To explain the connection or destroy it completely.

He knew Hermann wouldn't kill him, but he wouldn't keep the information locked away either. He'd seek help and Newton knew for certain that those people would have made the choice about his life no matter what he personally wanted. The image of his body strapped to a table with drills inching toward his skull stuck in his mind. It left him in a cold sweat as he finally entered the apartment, closing the door behind him.

Once within, he didn't quite know what to do with his time and ended up wandering around aimlessly. He felt restless without anything to release his pent up energy, a tiger pacing a small cage that continued to shrink. The idea of escape sounded appealing to the part of him that feared his imagined fate, but staying put was his best course of action. The apartment provided a familiar, comfortable haven and he needed to wait for Hermann to return. If he wasn't home when he did, that outburst of anger at the Shatterdome wouldn't be the last.

He busied himself by playing video games in a poor attempt to keep his mind away from reality, but the truth nagged at him all the while. Eventually, he gave up, throwing the controller at the floor in frustration. It smacked against the floor, bouncing a few times but it didn't break. Newton threw himself back onto the couch, burying his face in his hands.

_WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?_ he screamed inside his own head.

He didn't expect a response which made him feel even more hopeless, but when the itch at the back of his skull started, fear spread through him like a virus. In a flurry of fright and anxiety he started slamming his hands against the side of his head as if to beat the voices away.

"No! No, no, no, NO!" He fought back against it pushing with his own mind, striking the bone encasing his brain until it started to ache.

It kept the feeling at bay but it didn't disappear entirely. Without thinking, Newton stood and rushed to the bathroom where he turned on the cold water in the shower. He shoved his head underneath, gasping as the freezing cold stream engulfed him. The shock cleared his head, stole his breath, and stole the heat from his skin. He welcomed every moment as the water flattened his hair and streaked across the lenses of his glasses. He didn't know how long he kept his head under, but the creak of the front door opening broke his trance.

He pulled away from the water and turned it off, its freezing touch lingering on him as it dripped down onto his shirt from his hair and face. With his hand, he tried to wipe away the water as slow footsteps moved toward him but only succeeded in moving the droplets around and soaking his hand. He grew aware that the itching at the back of his head disappeared, but the ache his self-abuse caused had only worsened. Regret at the action bloomed along with the incessant pounding just as a form stepped into the doorway.

"Newton?" Hermann said, brows knitted and mouth formed into a puzzled frown.

"Hey, Herm," he said, sounding distracted as he searched the room for a towel. He opened the door to a small closet and pulled one out, using the soft, fluffy cloth to dry his face. His glasses remained streaked with water tracks but that didn't concern him much as he ran the towel over his hair.

"What happened?"

"I, uh, needed to clear my head!" he said with a bright smile.

Hermann's frown deepened but he didn't press the issue further. Instead, he brought up the one from earlier. "We need to talk."

Newton nodded, slinging the towel around his damp shoulders. "All right, man. Let's talk."

Hermann walked off and Newton followed him into their living area where they both sat down, Hermann in one of the chairs and Newton on the couch. They sat in silence for a few long moments as Hermann looked him over before he finally spoke.

"What were you doing in Lichtenberg last night?" he said calmly, leaning back in the chair.

Newton groaned and rubbed his face under his glasses. "Hermann, I—"

"I don't want excuses, I want an answer," he replied, cutting off Newton's words as swiftly as a sharpened blade.

"I… I don't have an answer for you," Newton said, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees so he could stare at the floor instead of Hermann's face.

"Why not?" he said, his voice growing colder.

At first, he felt conflicted and ashamed. His weak excuses planted seeds of guilt causing him to mull over the truth on his tongue. Just as it reached the tip, about to burst out of him, an unfamiliar rage gripped his heart and turned his words sour. "I don't know, Hermann!" he snapped, looking him in the eye with newfound confidence. "Why does it matter?"

"Because you were gone all night and you won't tell me what you were up to!" Hermann countered, trying to keep his voice down as not to draw complaints from the neighbors. "I was worried about you and you're lying to me."

Newton felt the anger grip tighter, feeding and nurturing the beast that resided there. It felt unlike any emotion he'd experienced before. He knew anger, he knew it well, he knew it in Hermann's presence, but he'd never known it so pure and hateful. He couldn't control it. "I'm a fucking adult. I can come and go as I damn well please," he hissed as he pulled the towel from his neck and threw it to the floor. He was compelled to stand, towering over Hermann. "I don't have to tell you anything. What are you to me?"

Hermann stood up to full height, standing a full head taller than Newton as he stared down at him. Newton could tell from his eyes that his anger had lost its sharp edge, replaced with confused concern, while his own rage kept building, forge billows keeping the flames hot and high. "What's gotten into you, Newton? I'm your friend."

"Well, you act like a clingy fucking  _boyfriend,_ " he replied, poignantly stating the final word with clear disgust. "God knows I don't need  _that_ in my life."

Hermann sputtered slightly, any response he could have formulated lost on his dry tongue. Instead he gaped at Newton, a flush rising in his cheeks that could've been embarrassment, anger, or a mixture in equal parts. Despite the surprise of it, he quickly collected himself and stormed out of the room, not bothering to answer or look Newton in the eye. He paused at the doorway and spoke in a dead tone without turning back.

"All I've done is try to help you."

Newton watched him go, unaffected by the comment as the flame still roared within him, until he heard the door to Hermann's room slam shut hard enough to make the walls shake.

Once alone, the fire of rage extinguished so suddenly and wholly that a sickening dizziness swept over him. The world under his feet spun, making him feel unstable enough on his feet to fall backward onto the couch. He covered his eyes with a hand, trying to ride out the nausea and light-headed feelings without the spinning sights to make it worse. A few minutes later, the sickness passed and left him with a prominent emptiness, one so deep and dark that it ached as if someone or something reached inside him and ripped a piece away.

He gasped hard from the shock of it as every word he'd just said returned to him in a dream-like fog. Stunned and unsure of what to do, his body curled up. His hands covered his face at first but they slowly migrated upwards until he buried his nose where his elbows met, trying to construct a cocoon for himself in order to hide and keep away from the world. Every word, uttered in his voice, but he hadn't spoken them. They echoed around in his head, causing him to curl up tighter until he couldn't anymore, but still he couldn't hide from what happened.

"I'm so sorry, Hermann, so sorry," he whispered to the leather couch, to the dust in the air, but not to the person he wanted to hear it. "It wasn't me. I didn't mean it. Any of it. I…"

His chest shook hard with deep sobs that reached the aching emptiness within.  _I deserve this,_  he thought.  _I let this happen._


	6. Chapter 6

The ribs in Newton's chest and the heart they protected all moaned in unified pain as he remained curled up on the leather couch. His muscles joined the chorus with a dull background throb from remaining clenched for so long. After a while, an hour or perhaps two, his body relaxed into a fitful sleep where physical pains couldn't touch him, but psychological ones deemed torturing him fair game.

Peaceful, restful sleep felt like a distant memory or a myth as his unconscious mind was ripped from darkness into a barrage of images. Most of it was stuff he couldn't make sense of. Either it moved by too fast or his mind flashed pictures he couldn't recognize or understand. However, the images that did stick sent chills along the flesh of his sleeping form. A picture of the older man who confronted him the night before rose to the surface and he appeared to be looking at Newton with a petrified expression as they stood in some kind of shop.

As quickly as it appeared before him it was gone, replaced by a perfect image of the chalkboard at the lab. A few more meaningless images passed by: an empty warehouse; the sky opening up to a downpour of rain; bright, white flames giving off sparks. All the while, he tossed and turned, using up more energy than his poor excuse for a night of rest could rejuvenate. Still, he managed to sleep until morning and when he woke up, he knew he was alone.

The silence that hung in the air told him, the kind devoid of life that settled around him like dust and left him at ill ease. He unfurled his body despite its sharp complaints and looked over at the entertainment center to check the time. Seven thirty-seven in the morning. Much too early for Hermann to already be at work but Newton couldn't blame him. If he'd been the first to wake, he would've left as well just so he wouldn't have had to face Hermann. The idea of it made the palms of his hands go cold and clammy for more reasons than one.

For starters, he couldn't explain why he'd said what he did or why it wasn't his fault. Another problem would be the boyfriend comment and being forced to explain why that wasn't true. That, in fact, he felt the opposite. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, not wanting to think about it. He chose to just feel happy that he didn't wake up with blood running down his face after that odd episode.

The images from his dream lingered in his mind as he stood up and walked out to the kitchen. He rifled through what he could remember as it had started to crumble once his eyes opened, trying to piece it together into something that made sense. The task was made all the more difficult by the fact that he only understood two parts of the puzzle: the older man and the chalkboard equations. And out of those, the face of the scared man was the one that imprinted itself onto the backs of his eyelids.

He mulled it over, not really paying attention to the world around him as he opened the fridge and closed it after a few moments of looking but not seeing. The thought of that man's face, looking directly at him with fear in his eyes, plagued him until he realized what it meant. He had done something to warrant that man being so cautious of him that night. The Precursors had taken him there to that store and he couldn't fathom a guess as to why.

The image details grew fuzzy and he covered his eyes with his hands, squeezing them shut to try and sharpen it out again. He pressed his forehead against the cool surface of the fridge, focusing as hard as possible until the scene around the older man grew clear. Behind him stood sets of shelves, each one holding different types of machine parts. He saw bins that held washers, nuts, and bolts as well as a section of several work tools.

Newton stepped back and opened his eyes, more confused and afraid than before. The Precursors were using his body to build something. His first thought was to go back there, try to find the store, but a wave of nausea and pain brought him to his knees. Bone smacked to the hard floor as he doubled over, feeling something prodding at the still raw piece of void that the aliens in his head created last night. All-consuming emptiness and despair trickled down like blood from a head wound as the static in his mind formed words.

_**Do not dig where you are not wanted, lest you dig your own grave.** _

"Then just fucking kill me already," Newton growled, one arm wrapped around his gut with the other on the floor to support him. "Get it over with."

_**You gave your body over to us willingly and we still have use of it yet. But do not fret. All in good time, Newton. You are eager to die and we will not want to leave… loose ends.** _

The static dissipated, leaving him even more alone. The sudden urge to slam his head into the floor inches from his face overwhelmed him. The image of his body lying there, blood leaking out in a pool around the crack in his skull felt oddly comforting, but he collapsed in a heap before he had the chance to decide. He felt like he'd just run a few miles and been violently ill after.

He groaned as he worked up the strength to stand up, swaying a little when he finally managed to get there. With a zombie-like gait, he made his way to his bedroom and dropped on his unmade bed, feeling the lowest he'd felt in a long time. He had no idea what to do, so rather than do anything he decided to just lay there for a long while.

 

 

The day passed by in a haze of exhaustion and depression. He fell in and out of sleep, preferring unconsciousness to the pain of being awake and aware of what his life had become. A few hours after the sun sunk below the horizon, the door opened and startled Newton fully awake. He sat up in the dark room, listening hard as he heard Hermann's footsteps enter the apartment before he closed the door. Newton felt conflicted because he both wanted to go out and meet him and wanted to avoid him forever.

He stood up and walked to the door of his room, pressing his ear to the wood. He listened to the click of his cane as he moved around the kitchen. As quietly as possible, he wrapped a hand around the door knob, trying to decide what to do. The footsteps grew louder as he walked down the hall toward his room. Newton's heartbeat quickened and his grip on the door knob tightened but he couldn't bring himself to go out there and face him. His body froze, shame and fear forcing him to stand and listen as Hermann walked into his room and shut the door.

Newton slumped against the hard wood at his shoulder, removing his hand from the knob to press it flat against the door as if he could feel Hermann's lost presence. He slid down, all strength gone from his body, and dropped his head to knees.

 

 

The next morning didn't leave him feeling any better. His mind felt dazed and groggy as if he hadn't slept even though it was all he'd done. He rolled out of bed and rubbed his eyes before walking out toward the kitchen. He'd barely made it all the way down the hall before running right into Hermann. Instinctively, Newton reached out and grabbed Hermann by the shoulders to steady him but he held on for a little too long as he vividly remembered the fight and the state that their relationship was in. He let go and stepped back, looking up at Hermann's face as Hermann refused to meet his eye.

"Sorry about that, Herm," Newton said, his voice barely audible.

Hermann stepped back and moved around him, walking down the hall to his room.

"I'm sorry about what I said, Hermann," Newton said, his voice sounding stronger as he unconsciously reached out to him.

When Hermann continued to ignore him as he walked into the room, Newton dropped his arm and slumped his shoulders. He bared his teeth without thinking about it with enough pressure to cause him pain. As the level of emotion within him grew, he balled up his fists, causing his knuckles to bleach white. He felt sadness and anger and hopelessness and it all culminated as a stew inside of him until he turned and slammed his fist into the hard, cold refrigerator door with a satisfying thump. The adrenaline in his system staved off the agony as he punched it a few more times in quick succession, leaving a streak of dark red on the pristine white.

When he stepped back and cooled down for a moment, almost admiring the blood spatter like art, the sharp, pulsing pain started to creep its way into his sense of feeling. A hiss of air at his stinging hand slid through his teeth and he looked down at the damage. The knuckles on his right hand were torn and bleeding and he could feel what might've been microfractures. The adrenaline continued wear away until he couldn't help but curse and feel ridiculous about what he'd done.

"Ugh, fucking shit," Newton said, wincing as he gingerly examined his hand further. "I'm such an idiot. Can't do anything right."

Newton glanced down the hall, eyeing the door to Hermann's room as he tried to fight down a wave of sadness. Ignoring the pain he felt, he stole a few deep breaths to calm his emotions and closed his eyes. He focused hard, thinking about Hermann, reaching out with his mind for the link that connected them. With all the time after their drift, they'd performed a few tests on themselves, figuring out the effects and limits of their connection. Being able to feel each other's emotions turned out to be one of those effects.

He found the connection, like a silk thread, and he followed it in his mind toward Hermann's end. The almost meditative state keeping the connection required wavered as Newton's mind met at wall, built to keep him out. Newton opened his eyes and broke the connection. Hermann was blocking him out of his life and out of his head. The last vestiges of Newton's hope crumbled away and he was left in open air with nothing to hold on to.

"I give up," he whispered.

At the sudden declaration, he laughed, not entirely in control of the reaction. He laughed hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, though he wasn't entirely sure if it was the laughter or he was just crying as well. He reached out to the nearest counter with his good hand to keep him steady on his feet.

 _YOU HEAR THAT, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS?_ Newton shouted in his head.  _You win. I give up. You want my body, it's yours. No resistance. I don't want it anymore._

The laughter subsided as he gave himself over, leaving him with a tear-streaked face and nothing to live for. In the next moment, he felt a rustle at the back of his mind and everything turned black.

 

 

When he regained control of his body, the sun had fallen and Newton wasn't sure if a day or days had passed. He didn't exactly care. The Precursors at least had the courtesy to drop him off outside of his apartment when they were done, which he felt grateful for because they'd left his body feeling both exhausted and hungry. As he unlocked the door and walked inside, he didn't know which one to deal with first.

The apartment stood in still, silent darkness. The bright, neon readout on the microwave across the room said 2:13 AM, telling him that Hermann was asleep and he'd be safe to scavenge for food. He opened the fridge to find a sparse selection, coming away with a candy bar, half of a ham sandwich, and an half empty can of soda. He didn't feel in the mood to look for anything more substantial and took the pathetic excuse for a meal into his room where he devoured it all in a few minutes.

It was only after he had some food in his stomach that the pain in his hand registered. He hadn't had much time to feel it before, let alone do anything about it. He found some bandages and mild pain medication in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, wrapping up his hand and healing knuckles before he curled up in bed to sleep.

His stomach still rumbled by morning but he didn't have much time to consider how to fix it before the Precursors took over again. Days passed like that, maybe more as he'd lost track of time. The Precursors would leave him near his apartment and he was only given the time to take care of basic human needs before they would take him again. He started to drop weight and looked exhausted, purple around his eyes as if he'd never slept in his life. The arrangement worked perfectly well for him as it left him no time to think about his life or Hermann or about the deep depression that had hooked its black, clawed fingers into his brain.

When he slept, he continued to dream in flashes of images, only very few of them making any sense. He continued to dream of the frightened man, of the hardware store, as well as the odd warehouse that he'd never seen before. Where it was situated wasn't clear but it looked abandoned, worn down like an old man running on the final fumes of life. He saw oil and grease and shattered glass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something large he couldn't define.

Despite that, most times he slept peacefully, the odd images dissipating as he opened his eyes. However, Newton could almost sense a mental storm brewing as he returned to his body at the end of a blood red sunset. He entered the apartment and immediately noticed a couple of Styrofoam containers sitting on the counter. Wary, he closed the door behind him and approached the containers. He could smell something delicious wafting from them, causing his stomach to rumble. When he stood in front of them, he noticed a folded piece of paper with his name written on it in familiar cursive writing. Newton frowned, but grabbed the paper and opened it, reading the message a few times before it sunk in.

_Eat something. You haven't had a proper meal in days._

Newton turned the note over in his hands, unsure of how to feel. A part of him felt a swell of happiness that Hermann acknowledged him and noticed how he'd been acting. Another, stronger part felt like the gesture was too little too late. Bitterness flowed through his veins like poison as he thought of how Hermann wouldn't speak or listen to him. Even the food before him, he had to leave a note. He crumpled up the paper in his hands and tossed it on the floor. He even considered throwing out the food, but his stomach roared in the dull silence and Newton thought it would be sacrilege to let perfectly good food go to waste.

He grabbed the containers and a relatively clean fork before shutting himself in his room, unable to even look at Hermann's door as he passed. He dug into what he discovered was Thai food, barely paying attention to the different foods or flavors as he shoveled it into his starved body. Upon finishing the meal, he left the empty Styrofoam boxes strewn beside his bed before lying down, quickly falling into sleep from deep exhaustion.

The usual images flashed through his head, but after a few minutes, he started to see new ones, ones that played out more like clips than mere pictures. He saw himself looking down an unfamiliar street, walking with large strides like he needed to be somewhere as quickly as possible. He was about to take a turn down an alley when the clip cut off, replaced with another of him washing his hands. The sink in front of him looked like a rusted metal basin and the water from the tap ran slightly brown. As he looked down into the bowl of the sink, he saw that his hands were crusted red, causing the water around the drain to mix into a dark russet color.

Before Newton even had time to register the meaning, it switched again, this time to him walking down the hall of his apartment. He headed straight for the door when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He paused, turning slightly to see Hermann, wearing a serious, hard-set expression. Newton could see the muscles in his jaw working as if he kept clenching his teeth.

"Newton, I wanted to talk about what happened," he said, keeping steady eye contact.

Newton turned away wordlessly and shrugged out of his grip, leaving him behind. The clip changed one last time, showing the doors to the old warehouse again, but this time he walked inside of it. The large space was mostly empty, the cement floors dirty and littered with trash and leaves, the walls coated with grease and grime, the windows covered with dark blankets. Newton headed straight for a metal folding table, put on a pair of welding goggles, and picked up a torch. He turned and a giant tower of a machine consumed his field of vision. It almost reached the ceiling, made of patchwork sheets of metal and shaped like a satellite with a wide base and a closed pyramid at the top made of four, claw-like metal fixtures. He turned on the torch, watching the flames burn, sparks flinging themselves from the stream, before he woke up in a panicked sweat.

"Oh god." The words tumbled from his mouth as he tried to process and keep fresh the recent dream. "Oh my god."

He scrambled from the bed and rushed around the room until he held a pad of paper in one hand and a pen in the other. In sloppy chicken scratch handwriting, Newton took note of every last detail he could recall before he sat down on his bed to review everything. As he read through, one hand crept up to rest over his mouth as his expression shifted into one of disbelief, eyes wide, eyebrows high and arched. He shook his head slowly, wishing it all had stayed buried, wishing none of it had ever happened at all. The thought of his red-stained hands remained at the forefront, churning his stomach and causing his imagination to run wild in the worst ways.

"Did I…" he began, his voice low enough for only him to hear. "Jesus, did I hurt someone?"

 _Did I kill someone?_ he thought, unable to bring himself to say it out loud.

His gut lurched and he had to run to the bathroom before he lost all of his stomach contents. Waves of heat and chills wracked his body, causing him to sweat and shake as he gripped the seat of the toilet. He reached a point where he was simply dry heaving for a few minutes until he could finally sit back, the nausea gone for the moment. He wiped his brow, flinching at the pain it caused his bandaged hand. With a large amount of effort, he tried to push the idea he might've seriously hurt someone from his mind. Nothing he could do about it whether or not it happened. Instead, he focused on the next problem: Hermann.

He cleaned up his face, cleaned out his mouth, and walked out to stand in front of Hermann's door. Time seemed to drag on in those moments that he stood outside the door. He felt compelled to pace but he held his ground, mustered his courage, and knocked. Then he waited. And waited. Until he finally tried the door and opened it to an empty room. The space looked obscenely tidy, a perfectly made bed, organized bookshelf and dresser, all of the clothes put away in designated areas. It was like the after picture to the before that Newton's room seemed to always be.

After a few seconds, he shut the door and stepped back, not wanting to make matters worse by trespassing on his personal territory. Gone to work, though to be fair Newton didn't know the time of day, so in all likelihood, Hermann's absence should've been expected. That left him with one last problem to deal with and that was the giant machine in the old warehouse.

He didn't want to face it, he didn't want to know what it did, but anything potentially dangerous had to be stopped. He knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if something horrible happened at his hands, not that the Precursors would keep him alive for long afterward. He wracked his brain for a location, but everything was buried in his subconscious, taken and locked away by the beings in his head. He paced down the hall, hitting his forehead with the heels of his hands as if that might dislodge answers until he felt the Precursors encroaching on his waking mind.

With considerable effort, he squeezed his eyes shut tightly in order to concentrate on fighting back. He kept the buzzing in his mind at bay but couldn't remove them completely. They both knew he would weaken eventually but that's when a thought crossed his mind. Just as soon as it appeared, he made it disappear, wiping his mind of it entirely so he that he was the only one to comprehend it. Then he stopped fighting and let them take over, submerging his mind in darkness with the exception of one tiny pinprick of light.

 

 

Newton rode out the trip like a lucid dream, trying his hardest to pass off as unconscious, but keeping one finger above the line of awareness. At that vantage point, Newton wasn't able to see but he caught pieces of the Precursors' thoughts.  _The machine is near completion,_ they thought as they used his body to climb into a cab they'd called for. Newton didn't like the sound of that at all. It required a lot of effort to keep his emotions in check and stay below their radar.

The rest of the way, he focused less on their words and more on stayed perched at his precariously balanced position. Minutes passed like hours and his resolve started to weaken before he finally heard whispers of the warehouse in his mind. At his cue, he pulled everything of who he was off the edge of unconsciousness and burst through like an uninvited guest to a party. He tore his way through so rapidly and with such force that the Precursors didn't have time to react before he regained full control.

It felt like dragging his body out of ice cold water, breaking to the surface with a gasp of fresh air and a new respect for life. At first, none of his senses worked, but they slowly kicked in, his sight and hearing awakened, his sense of smell. The inside of the warehouse looked exactly as he'd dreamt it. He scuffed a shoe on the dirty floor, inhaling the scent of oil and must.

He kept his eyes to the floor, to the walls, avoiding the one place he needed to look, but eventually his eye drew him to the monstrous machine at the center of the large floor space. Sickness swept over him again but he kept it down. With careful steps, he walked around it, taking in the gears, the welding marks, the incomplete control panel at the base. He looked to the top and saw the four claws, closed together in a pyramidal shape. He reached out to touch the metal but couldn't bring himself to do it as if he could still feel the heat from the welding torch.

"What is this? What does it…" He hesitated and thought about their possible motivations, looking the machine over once more, and it hit him. "No. No no no NO. You're trying to reopen the Breach."

The Precursors in his head hissed and rattled like angry snakes but Newton's rage burned, matching theirs and more.

"You're not doing this. You're NOT using my body to do this. It ends now," he hissed, scouring the immediate area for something, anything to use, when his gaze settled on a hefty hammer.

Newton knew what it was that he needed to do, but felt like he had one piece of unfinished business to wrap up before he followed through with it. He patted down his pockets and found his phone in the right pocket, exactly the last place he left it. Concentration felt difficult with the Precursors scratching and screaming at the back of his mind, but he refused to relinquish control. Instead, he found the right number and called.

"This is Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. I am unavailable at the present time but, if you have urgent business, leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

His heart sank at the recorded message but composed himself in time for the irritating beep afterward.

"Hey, Hermann," Newton said, his voice trembling slightly as he fought to maintain sanity. "I wish you'd pick up your damn phone. I… I hate to leave this as a message."

He paused, crumbling a little, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. "Listen, Herm, I have something really important to say. Everything that's happened recently, that… it wasn't me. But I'm me now. And this, all of this, it's not some stupid, meaningless thing just because I won't get the chance again. This is something I should've said a long fucking time ago." He drew a deep, rattling breath as a few tears leaked out. "I love you, man. I do. And you know that. But I'm saying it out loud for the first time. I fucking love you and I wish more than anything I could've heard you say it too. I wish we could've played this out, had our lives together, but what I'm doing is saving the world.

"From myself admittedly, but I'm saving it for everyone. Mako and Raleigh. For Herc. Tendo. For you, Hermann. I'm saving it for you," he wiped the tears from his cheeks and pushed the rest down. "And if you get some weird dream with a disembodied voice asking to invade your mind, just say no. Don't do what I did. Don't fuck it up."

He hung up the call and tossed the phone onto the nearest metal table with a loud clatter as the tools on it bounced and jostled. Then he walked up to the table with the heavier tools and grabbed the hammer, having to hold it with two hands. He felt the Precursors growing more wild and frantic and knew he wouldn't have much time.

"You are a beautiful piece of technology and I'm sorry to do this, but…" He ran and swung the hammer as hard as he could, ending his sentence with the sound of metal crunching.  
He didn't waste any time, hitting the points that seemed crucial from only a short examination, trying to destroy as much as possible before the inevitable happened. Minutes later, the Precursors grew to the peak of the anger and Newton felt the huge drain on his energy. His hurt hand screamed in pain, his arms felt like solid lead. They were starting to take his control away and he knew he couldn't stop them.

"You can't… stop me…" he huffed, short of breath as he labored over another hammer swing, breaking apart the control panel. "You'll have to… kill me…"

_**We will not kill you yet, Newton. Thanks to you, there are repairs to make.** _

Newton growled, gripping the hammer so tightly that both his hands ached. "Fine. Then I'll do it myself."

 

 

Hermann heard his phone ring, but the noise seemed like the buzz of a lone bee on the far side of the room as he worked out the plausibility of his calculations on his computer. He drew up hologram models, graphs, everything came up negative. Based on what he was researching, it should've been a good sign, but he felt deep in his mind that something was off. It frustrated him to no end that he couldn't figure out the exact problem.

About fifteen minutes after the call, Hermann stopped to take a short break, to walk away from his work and collect his thoughts before going back into it. He walked through the tables, picking up his phone from one of them and his lunch from the fridge along the way before settling down in one of the chairs. The lab assistants were working quietly at the back of the room and Hermann had almost forgotten they were there.

He unlocked his phone, choosing to check his message first, though he felt hesitant after seeing it was from Newton. As soon as it started to play, Hermann's heart beat faster, worry constricting the muscle as Newton spoke. He said that he loved him, that he was doing something to save the world. Hermann's eyes widened, all thoughts of lunch gone, all thoughts of anything gone.

Newton wasn't in a mentally stable state, he knew only that, so he had no idea what he was about to do or what he was capable of doing. Not much of his message made sense, especially the dream part, but his stomach clenched and his breaths came through in short, panicked bursts. His mind raced at what Newton could be doing and immediately he searched for Newton's phone through the GPS tracker, hoping he had it on him.

The wait for the results felt like it took ages, but finally Newton's position showed up on a map. The Lichtenberg district, not too far from where he'd been the last time he'd used the GPS. He was so far away and based on the voice mail, Hermann felt like he didn't have much time. In a rush, he pushed himself to his feet with his cane and walked over to the interns, smacking the cane against a table leg to grab their attention.

"Which one of you owns a car and is willing to vastly exceed the speed limits for money?" he said, his expression grim as he looked over each of them.

After a quick glance at each other, Anna, Erika, and Bryson each raised their hands.

"All right. You," he said, pointing at Anna, "grab whatever you need. We're leaving right now. It's important we get there as fast as possible."

Anna leapt up, grabbing her coat off a hook by the door. "Where are we going, Dr. Gottlieb?"

"I'll give information on a need to know basis," he snapped, his anxiety getting the better of him. He frowned and shook his head, looking at poor, startled Anna apologetically. "Let's just get to the car."

 

 

The entire ride there, Hermann couldn't help but feel restless. He fidgeted with his cane, couldn't concentrate on anything but getting there in time. He only spoke when he needed to tell Anna where to turn, unable to keep the harshness of worry from his tone. Yet, upon reaching the frightful looking building, being at his destination didn't ease his anxiety. The area felt like the middle of nowhere, a lone building that no one would've ever guessed existed. Hermann unbuckled his seatbelt and Anna went to do the same, but Hermann held out his hand to stop her.

"Wait here," he said as he opened the car door. "I honestly don't know what I'll find in there. It is best if you just stay put. In fact, here."

Hermann pulled out his wallet and handed her all the euros he had in it. "Just take that and go. I'll find another way back. Thank you."

"Thank you, doctor," she said, looking hesitantly at the warehouse before turning back to him. "Stay safe."

Hermann nodded before exiting the car with help from his cane. Once Anna had left, he looked to the building as if the structure held horrors beyond his imagination. But even though that's what he feared to find, he never truly expected to find anything so nightmarish. So, he approached the warehouse and knocked on the door while opening it.

"Newton? Newton, are you in here?"

The place seemed to be just as abandoned as it looked. He stepped further inside and pulled out his phone to check the tracker again when the wreckage of a large machine caught his eye.

"What is th—"

The end of the sentence caught in his throat as he was thrown from his feet onto the floor. He let go of his cane and it clattered to the concrete just as the air left his lungs from his own hard impact. The edges of his vision blurred for a moment but returned to focus when a man bent over him, tightly gripping his neck. Hermann gasped for air but when he looked up into a pair of luminescent blue eyes, he stopped breathing altogether.

"N-Newton?" he asked, his eyes wide, heart pounding in his chest.

The blue light consumed the entirety of his eyes, so when he smiled, the inhumanity of the expression planted a deep seed of fear in Hermann's heart. Blood covered most of the top half of his face like a mask, splattered onto his broken glasses, gushing from a forehead wound.

Newton started to speak and when he spoke it sounded like many voices at once, none of them his. " _ **I regret to inform you that Newton is no longer with us.**_ "


End file.
